11th May 2008. The Hope Pastures Spring Draw took place today. If you want to see if you are a winner, follow this link. All winners will be notified in due course.   13th April 2008. Toddy has gone to live in a lovely new home close to Hope Pastures, where he will be ridden now and again and also used as a companion. The home is with two other horses, one of whom gets extremely distressed when the other horse would leave to go out on a ride.   4th March 2008. Planning permission was finally granted to enable us to put up new stables and convert one of our buildings to an educational centre. Unfortunatley there are a list of conditions as long as your arm, but I'm sure we will overcome these.   4th March 2008 was one of those days that no-one likes. News came through form one of our adoption homes that Chieftain had had a heart attack during the night and died. More of this news to follow 16th January 2008. You may have read that we want to develop Hope Pastures, to provide more stables etc (see Projects). Today we heard that our planning application had been passed through to the planners, so keep your fingers crossed that everything goes well. We have been told that we should have a decision around the 4th March 2008 1st January 2008 marks the start of another year. 2007 had been quite a good year for the sanctuary except for the loss of three of our beloved animals. We have made a start on our redevelopment and received excellent feedback from our Pony Days. None of what we have achieved would be possible without your continued support. We would like to say thank you for your support in 2007 and ask that you continue to support us in 2008. A full list of all our events can be found on our 'Forthcoming Events' page and we hope you will be able to join us at our table top sales and open days this year. Wishing you all a Happy, Healthy and Successful 2008.   14th December 2007 Land Securities, along with a number of their contractors, volunteered their time and resources to Hope Pastures to complete a number of projects. They included fencing and painting a new paddock that will be used for a training area, re-roofing Paddy and Tina's stone built stables that were desperately in need of repair and re-flooring Shazeke's and Trigger's stables. We would like to say a big Thank You to all concerned. Your contribution is very much appreciated. See 'Projects' 10th December 2007 Sophie, our yard manager, was selected by the THE BRITISH EQUESTRIAN FEDERATION as one of seven finalists in the 'Groom of the year' competition. Everyone was very pleased Sophie has been recognised for the work that she has done over the years. She deserves to be nominated for such a prestigious award in recognition of her dedication and commitment to animal welfare. Sophie said " the part of the job I love most is seeing the horses get back to their full health". Well done Sophie!!   27th November 2007 and 29th November 2007 were not good days for Hope Pastures. Then again, no day is a good day when we lose a resident, so to lose two animals in three days was heartbreaking. We have sadly had to say goodbye to pretty little Jasmine and poor old Napoleon. 21st October 2007 Our Open Day was yet another success, infact it was our best yet. Thank you to everyone who contributed by helping out on the stalls and by attending the event. We raised £2356.07. 16th October 2007 We were invited to go down to London to collect an award from the House of Lords, from IFAW. We had been nominated for and won the 'Animal Carers Award 2007 '. We were presented with the award by Baroness Gale and Robbie Marsland of IFAW and we were also lucky enough to be joined by the MP for our constituency Greg Mulholland. 16th September 2007 Little Red was moved to a new foster home back with his old friend Pearl. It was good to see the two back together. 13th September 2007 We invested in our largest project to date and had lots of new fencing installed. Firstly, we have added another fence along the Ring Road boundary to the land to give us a double fence in which we hope to 'plant' a hedgerow in the future to not only give us greater safety, but would also make the sanctuary more nature friendly. The second batch of fencing has enabled us to split our big field into three, which now means we can enroll in some 'pasture management', -something that has never been done in the last 30 years. The splitting has also given us a pathway up the middle to enable visitors to have a better view of the horses. 14th August 2007 Flossie, a little red Shetland arrived at Hope Pastures. More details here 12th August 2007 We held our second 'Summer time Special' charity fundraising evening at Weetwood Hall. We were a little unsure if the night was going to be that successful as ticket sales had been a little slow, but then at the last minute all the tickets went and we had a full house. Apart from being a little windy, it turned out to be great summer's evening with everyone enjoying themselves and also thanks to their generosity we not only matched last year's money from the event, but went on to nearly doubling it. We would like to say a big thank you to Martin, Maureen and all the staff at Weetwood Hall for their generosity and help making the night run so smoothly. We would also like to thank Gavin Townsend , who also gave up his time to provide the music and entertainment for the evening. Lastly, thank you to everyone that that came along to support us. (If you enjoyed it, please spread the word so next year we wont have to panic about the numbers !!) 20th May 2007 We were so lucky on our OPEN DAY that we had near perfect weather, which meant we had a good turn out of people. We would like to take this opportunity to say thank you to all the volunteers who manned the stalls, thank you also to the vegetarian and vegan society who put on a great spread for us and to all the general public who attended. 13th May 2007 Was the day for the draw for our Spring raffle. All winners will be notified in due course. 10th May 2007 When we took over three years ago we 'inherited' a number of old horses which means that days like today are somewhat inevitable. Today we had to say goodbye to our old friend Beauty. Beauty was a sweet old mare but ill health got the better of her in the end. She was very popular as she had given many happy hours to children of all ages, who for many was their first time they had had 'hands on' experience in grooming and handling a pony. She will be missed by so many. Click here to read more 24th March 2007 Parcelforce Worldwide ( Wakefield ) came to the sanctuary to take part in a community challenge. 25 staff, family and friends gave up their Saturday to 'create' a garden for us. We wanted a remembrance garden for the horses we had lost that had trees and shrubs to give a screen and was attractive to wildlife. Parcelforce Worldwide not only gave us the people but also over £500 to buy the plants and paving required to turn a paddock into the garden. We would like to say thank you to all that gave up their time and worked so hard to complete the task. 25th February 2007 It was all change at Hope Pastures as we saw Chieftain go off to a new home and two new residents arrive. It is always at bit sad when a resident leaves us, but in Chieftain's case the emotion was also tinted with happiness as he headed off to a good new home. We had been trying for ages to find somewhere suitable for him, but being a stallion, re-homing was always going to be difficult. As our mission is to rescue and re-home where possible, Chieftain's departure meant we had space to take in two new animals in the name of Zak and Napoleon. These two poor animals were in the worst state Hope Pastures has ever seen but the full horror came when we took their rugs off. Both animals were severely under weight and Napoleon in particular, looked like he had never seen a farrier in his life. Follow this link to see more. Napoleon & Zak 20th February 2007 We opened our 'Buy.at' on-line shop. Our webshop will contain an ever-growing number of retailers such as Amazon, Tesco, Thorntons, Marks & Spencer and John Lewis. All you have to do is to shop online via your webshop - and we'll automatically earn money with every purchase. You pay exactly the same price as on the retailers' main sites, often lower than on the high street and with over 100 retailers, we are sure you'll find what you want. Check out http://www.buy.at/hopepastures 18th February 2007 We had what should be known as our first Psychic Night. I say first, as it was such a great success, that I'm sure there will be others to follow. Our thanks must go out to all the psychics that very kindly gave their time, energy and skill free of charge, also to The Suburban Bar & Bistro in Chapel Allerton who hosted the event, and lastly but not least to those that organised and ran the event. 19th January 2007 We held our first first joint event with Wheatfields Hospice. Our '60's' night was a great success. We had a great turn out and filled the room creating a lively atmosphere. Our thanks must go out to the following: The New Burley Club for hosting the event, the T.O.G's for providing the live music and QLM, Morrisons (Kirkstall), Greggs and Leeds Catering Company for their contributions to the catering, and also to everyone else that made the night so enjoyable. 14th January 2007 We had a new arrival in the name of Hilton To see more follow this link See here for news from previous years