Elisabeth Svendsen Trust

EST Leeds is holding a 2 day Christmas Fair this year on Saturday 4 and Sunday 5 December 2010, from 10am to 2.30pm. The Fair welcomes everyone young and old to enjoy our wonderful decorations and sample delicious seasonal fayre. All children can enjoy a sleigh or donkey ride to Santa's Grotto where each child will receive a present from Santa himself!

Festive home cooked refreshments available. Buy a beautiful Christmas Wreath!

A team of hardy staff and volunteers braved the freezing weather on Saturday 20 November to accept Sainsbury's kind invitation to fundraise at their store in Otley for the day. We took Simon and Rosie along to meet all the customers, they certainly made people turn their heads as they drove into the car park! We also bag packed all day in the store.

Returning to the centre after a hard afternoon's work with the elderly in our community, Simon had his sights set on his teatime treat of carrots and ginger biscuits. However, he wasn't the only one with his eye on the goodies - Cassie, one of the cats on mouse control here at the centre, was also showing an interest the ginger biscuits!

Simon is always out and about as he doesn't mind travelling and enjoys going to different venues. A thespian in Taming of the Shrew, a regular visitor to a number of care homes and hospices, the reliable one attending church services when required. Simon does it all!

Kelly has melted the hearts of our newest member of staff, Jayne. Kelly and Jayne have become very close and spend a lot of time together walking up the lane. Passers-by have been commenting on what a beautifully turned-out and well-behaved donkey Kelly is - and she's lapping up all the attention!

Kelly used to live on the Isle of Skye until she was relinquished to our sister charity, The Donkey Sanctuary where she was part of the show team who travelled to county shows. Kelly is now part of our team and her best friend is Rosie.

A visitor to the centre asked a member of staff for help in taking a photo of William, who was out in the field. William, of course, was far too busy eating grass to pose for photos, and the more the groom tried to take a sensible shot, the more William made silly poses. Head outstretched, ears back, head down, you name it. What a sense of humour! These donkeys surely know everything we are trying to do and, in William's case, does everything possible to make it fun - by the way, we got a photo in the end!

Rosie was born in 1990 and relinquished to The Donkey Sanctuary, our sister charity, in 1999. She is originally from Gwynedd and came into the Sanctuary with her son, Phineas.

Rosie has an extremely quiet nature, making her ideal for working with the elderly in our community. She loves the attention she gets on visits and enjoys her creature comforts, much
preferring to be inside a nice warm home!