Newsletter #5 - January 2008

Hello Everybody
Happy Happy New Year to you all, and welcome to the My Parrot Shop Newsletter for January 2008!  We had intended to make a special Christmas card for you all, but life got a little hectic, and we missed the moment. So instead we've included a link to our latest favourite video clip - this one is Snowball the Cockatoo dancing (from YouTube). Make sure your sound is on! We hope you all had a great holiday season with many warm and pleasant days doing very little!

See us at the Melbourne Pet Expo !!

We'll be at the Melbourne Pet Expo from Friday 1st to Sunday 3rd of February (yep, this weekend!) 10am - 5pm. We'll be sharing a booth with Nikki and friends from Bird Boarding.

The address is Caulfield Racecourse, Station St, Caulfield. There will be ample parking for those of you driving, or Caulfield is only 7 stops from the city on the Frankston, Cranbourne or Pakenham trains.

This is one of Australia's largest pet expos featuring:

• Over 100 exhibitors.
• Stage presentations and demonstrations, including a presentation by Nikki with Rosie the Green Wing Macaw (Rosie, pictured above, will also be hanging out at our booth).
  
• Loads of things for children to do.
• Lots of bird stuff!
  

So come along to say hello and see our range of parrot products 'in the flesh' - a great day out!

A Year in Business
My Parrot Shop has been open for about 16 months now, and we thought you might like a little summary of who and what we are.

Caroline and Jen are the owners and creators of My Parrot Shop, which was opened out of a desire to increase the availability of safe and interesting parrot products in Australia.

Jen’s main responsibility is as the designer and manufacturer of the My Parrot range of toys. John, Jen’s partner, helps in the manufacturing, especially if there is stainless steel involved, as it requires a very strong arm to manipulate.

Caroline is the woman you have contact with most of the time. She’s the bird-enthusiast that gets the new products up on the website, posts the orders out, answer’s emails and generally keeps things ticking over.

Richard, Caroline’s husband, is the man who made the website and keeps it operational. He fixes weird problems that occur and does other useful IT things that the rest of the My Parrot team don’t understand at all.

Caroline and Jen initially worked full time at other jobs, squeezing My Parrot work into weekends, lunch hours, and the post-dinner hours. A year into it (much longer if you include the many months prior to opening!), they’ve both stopped working at other jobs and are entirely focused on My Parrot Shop.

Things have been very busy lately and we've started getting help with the toy manufacturing and day-to-day operations. There are still all sorts of wishes and ideas that Caroline and Jen have for the range of products on the My Parrot Shop website, not to mention the information pages, and gradually it will all appear. If the days were longer it would appear sooner, but hopefully it will happen at an agreeable speed to everyone for now. We're certainly planning on being around for a long time!

Welcome Leo!
Jen and John recently made themselves a family! Welcome Leo, first born of John and Jen! May you enjoy the wide range of non-toxic parrot toys available to you!

New Products

Over 30 new products are going up on the website at the moment so keep your eyes peeled over the next week or so. Included in this big product upload are the following:

• More feeding cup options
• Clicker training equipment including a book
• Great new parrot toys, like the Starburst (pictured above).
• New toy parts, including Superior Poly Rope.

As they are added over the next week, they will appear in quick easy searches on the left hand side of our website.

What’s this 'Poly Rope'?

Superior Poly Rope is very much like the old style Paulie Rope, and we will be gradually replacing it as the stringing component in many of our toys.  It is non-toxic and washable. The rope is coreless and has a unique twist that prevents unsafe lengths of fray. The polyethylene fibers do not have a "memory" like other rope; this prevents entrapment and limb strangulation caused by fibers such as nylon or polished cotton.

Take Note: If you have a penchant for the black Paulie Rope – buy up before its too late! We will no longer be bringing in new Paulie Rope stock.

Just Naturals

As promised in the last newsletter, the Just Naturals product range is now available on the website – see under our “New Products” section on the left hand side of the website (or click here). Using untreated sisal, stainless steel and various natural wood, nuts and seed pods, it really is a fantastic group of products that we’re very proud to have access to.

New Payment Method
We can now take credit cards over the phone, as many of you have already noticed. To use this option, select "Cheque or Bank Transfer" during checkout, and then just give us a call and we'll process the details with our Eftpos machine.

 

That's all, we hope you enjoyed our newsletter!

The My Parrot Team.