Animal Antiks

We have some great plans for the future of Animal Antiks and all that we offer at the farm. To help us achieve these plans, we seek confident, self-motivated, and proactive people to join our team and deliver a fantastic customer experience. Three new roles are currently open for applications: Head of Operations and Education This exciting new role will provide strategic leadership across operations and education, ensuring excellent service delivery, compliance with regulations, and outstanding educational outcomes while managing resources effectively. Reporting to the CEO, the ideal candidate will manage and develop the senior leadership team across both departments. You will also be able to build relationships with key stakeholders, including local authorities and parents. Safeguarding Lead (DSL)/Parent Liaison This key position will lead safeguarding practice across the organisation, ensuring compliance with statutory requirements while maintaining effective communication with parents/carers and external agencies. The successful candidate will be the Designated Safeguarding Lead (DSL), managing safeguarding concerns and referrals. The candidate will also be able to chair safeguarding meetings and participate in multi-agency forums. Head of Outdoor Education This exciting new role will lead and develop Animal Antiks’ outdoor education and therapeutic programmes, ensuring high-quality service delivery across adult social care, therapy sessions, recreational activities, and special events while maximising facility utilisation and community impact. The successful candidate will develop and oversee holiday activity programmes and club operations, recruit, train, and supervise programme delivery staff, and establish and monitor programme quality standards. If you or someone you know would be interested in finding out more, visit our website https://lnkd.in/ey6BatKt.

We're recruiting a General Manager to take on the operations management here at Animal Antiks. If you, or anyone you know, have the skills and personality to take on this busy but rewarding role, take a look at the full job advert. https://lnkd.in/eFdDNxEd

Well, what a busy few weeks we’ve had since our exciting night at #AngelsDen! Whilst we didn’t come away with the largest award, we are able to start organising the first of our sessions for young carers and young adult carers to visit the farm. If anyone is looking to assist with financial support for a worthwhile cause, this project would be a great option. We’d love to have a chat, so please get in touch. On top of attending #AngelsDen, our last two babies for this year have also finally been born! Campari was first, she arrived on the Friday after Angels Den and dear Rio followed a week later. Rio needed a bit of support over this weekend but seems to be finding her feet now. Both are female alpacas (crias). We think that’s enough excitement for this month so here’s hoping for some ‘business as usual’ time, for now at least.

Presenting to five entrepreneurs to pitch for funding for a fantastic project should be a breeze, right? What if one of those entrepreneurs happens to be the one and only Peter Jones of Dragon's Den fame? And the other four are George Anson, Matt Storey, Sarah Leslie and Mike Clare? Well, tomorrow night Dave Gobran from Animal Antiks and Beth Sawyers from Carers Bucks will be doing just that. Pitching for a share of £100,000 at the Angels Den 2024. Established in 2023 by The Clare Foundation to assist charities benefitting Buckinghamshire residents, Angels Den invites charities to apply for funding for a project that fits this criteria. The four Angels and Mike Clare each put forward £10,000 of their own money, and The Clare Foundation matches that. Each shortlisted charity will receive some funding, but all eyes are on the top award of £20,000. Over 65 applications were received this year, and Animal Antiks was delighted to hear that we had been shortlisted into the 'Big Ten', the group of charities that would be putting forward their bids at the Elgiva Theatre, Chesham, on 11 September. Our joint project targets young carers and young adult carers in Bucks. There are over 2,200 registered with Carers Bucks, with ages ranging from 5-25. The lives of these amazing young people are affected by their need to care for family members. At times, their responsibilities can become more of a burden, impacting their attendance at school or work for some young adult carers and their mental wellbeing. Animal Antiks wants to provide sessions at our farm, just outside of Aylesbury, for young carers to come and have a safe space to be themselves, to take time to be children and young adults, and not have to worry about their roles as carers. Working with Carers Bucks, we will give the young carers that we know are already struggling with mental health problems, including anxiety, depression and isolation, the opportunity to have these sessions first. We aim to offer up to three sessions at the farm to each of these young carers. They will meet our friendly animals and be able to make friends with other young carers, and they can decide what activity they would like to be involved in. Some of the choices include cuddling with our rabbits and guinea pigs or grooming the ponies to more active tasks, including helping with feeding and mucking out, or for those who like to get out and walk, our alpacas and llamas make great confidants and love nothing more than a walk round our fields. As you will appreciate, this is a massive project to provide multiple sessions for every young carer. If they all take us up on the offer, it would cost nearly £1m. Anything we receive from the Angels Den will be a great start and help us set solid foundations for a long-term programme of support for these amazing children and young people, but we are secretly hoping it will be the £20,000! Wish us luck, and check back soon to see how we get on tomorrow.

We're thrilled to announce that we've been shortlisted! It's an honour to be selected by The Clare Foundation to pitch for funding at the Angels Den event this September. In collaboration with @CarersBucks, we're seeking investment for a new project. Stay tuned for more details! #AngelsDen @theclarefoundation