[NYAGDU] Announcing the 2022 snarky guide dog T-shirt

[Heather Bird]

Greetings,



We are happy to announce the pre-order for our 2022 Snarky Guide Dog
T-Shirts has begun.



This T-shirt is being sold as a fundraiser for the New York Association of
Guide Dog Users. however, as was the case last year, the shirt does not
contain the logo of the New York Association of Guide Dog Users, the
National Association of Guide Dog Users, the NFB, or any other
organization. We encourage individuals to join organizations such as the
NFB, the ACB, etc., or the specialized divisions within such organizations,
such as NAGDU, GDUI, etc. However, we wanted to provide a T-shirt that
would have appealed to, and be applicable to, guide and service dog
handlers, no matter what organization(s) they choose to belong to and no
matter what school their dog is from. Upon request, we’re happy to provide
information about the New York Association of Guide Dog Users, and we
certainly wouldn’t refuse a donation at any time that is not related to the
purchase of a T-shirt. However, this fundraising campaign is purely based
on our annual T-shirt sale.



This year’s shirt is made of the same material as last year’s shirt. That
is, thin, of medium to high quality, and very soft. This year we have opted
for a shirt that is black, rather than blue. Most of the writing on the
shirt this year is produced in puff ink, just like the writing last year,
although our color is a very light, very bright blue. In addition to the
puff ink there is also some glitter ink in silver. The distribution of the
different inks and colors will be as follows:

A black shirt feature’s the following message “It isn’t dog fur its guide
dog GLITTER!” This message is presented on several lines, with a left
alignment, so that it appears as the body of a letter, albeit a very short
letter, where a graphic appears in the positioning, preceded by a dash,
such that it looks like it serves as a signature for the letter. The
graphic is a large paw print, facing with the toes upward, with braille
lettering contained within the paw print, the letters LOVE on the toes from
left to right, and the word DOG inside the heel of the paw print. The paw
print, the braille within it, the – preceding it, and the word GLITTER! are
all presented in the silver glitter ink, with the rest being presented in
the light blue puff ink described above. The format of the shirts makes it
look as if the message is being sent from the guide dog to the general
public, having been signed with a paw print reading love dog, Where dog
functions as the sender, and love functions as the degreeting, such as
sincerely, cordially, etc. this T-shirt is a little bit more flashy than
last year, but we have selected colors and formatting that tend to be quite
gender neutral, and could read a little bit on the masculine side, with the
black, blue, and silver color combination.



We strive to use messages that are fun, so that our purchasers can enjoy
wearing the shirt, so that our potential buyers will want to purchase the
shirt in the first place, and so that the public is more likely to not only
enjoy the shirt but be open minded and taken its message. While it is true
that it is not acceptable to bring a truly filthy dog into a public place,
regardless of the ADA and other such laws, it is equally true that a
well-groomed and clean dog, will shed a small amount of fur. This is not
the toxic substance, or menace to society, which some peoples over the top
reactions would seem to indicate. We want to send a message, in a fun and
snarky way, that a few guard hairs from the coat of a dog that is clean,
well-behaved, well groomed, and working hard, should be seen in a neutral,
or even perhaps, in a fun or appreciative way by those who happen to be
blessed with a small amount of guide dog glitter in their life when they
encounter a guide dog team.



This year our shirts will be a little less expensive if you purchase more
than one. A single shirt will be $22, and any additional shirts will be
only $20 apiece.



If you would like to purchase a shirt, you can use PayPal to
NYAGDUDivision at gmail.com. If you do not have a PayPal account, and would
like help setting one up, please feel free to reach out and we will help
you with that.



If you do not have, and would not like to have, a PayPal account, please
contact me at Heather.L.Bird at gmail.com <heather.l.bird at gmail.com> so that
we can work out an alternative payment arrangement.



These prices include the price of the shirt, whether you need an extra
small up to a 4X. While we do pay a slight up charge to the manufacturers
of the shirts for plus size shirts, we do not pass this cost along to the
purchasers of our shirts, no matter what size they happen to be. This cost
also already includes the shipping, and there will be no additional
shipping cost, whether you purchase one shirt or 10, whether you are a mile
away from us or all the way across the country.



We are utilizing a pre-order. Such as the one we used last year, which will
be three weeks in length this year, as we had many individuals who found
out about the shirts after we had already placed our order with the
manufacturer. Many of which took place within 1 to 7 days after we ended
the pre-order.



The pre-order period begins today, Friday, July 29. Therefore, will end,
with us placing our order for the shirts, on Friday, August 19th.



The turnaround time for the shirts to be completed should be like last
year, or shorter, as some supply chain issues have been improving, and we
will not have winter weather to contend with to impact the shipping of the
shirts to our manufacturer, or our shipping of the shirts out to those who
purchase them. Everyone who purchases a shirt will receive an email when we
order the shirts, another email when we receive the shirts, and an email
when their shirt is shipped.



Last year, we purchased the type of shipping that included tracking
information. Out of around 90 shirts ordered, we had a grand total of one
shirt that did not arrive. And the tracking information for that shirt,
didn’t clarify things for us, as the date and time on which it was
delivered, did not enable the individual to find the shirt which may have
been misdelivered, porch pirated or otherwise gone astray.



My experience with the blindness community, in particular, the guide dog
using community within the blind community, has been overwhelmingly
positive, so we will be operating on the honor system. This year we will
not be utilizing tracking information, and if you have not received your
shirt within the timeframe of the estimated shipping date we sent you,
please contact us, and we will do what we can to locate the shirt, and if
we cannot, then we will send out a replacement.



To place an order, please send an email to NYAGDUDivision at gmail.com and let
us know the following information:

·         Your full name as you would like it to appear on the shipping
address, especially important if you’re purchasing it as a gift and don’t
want someone else living with you to open it and find it prematurely.

·         We will need your full shipping address including ZIP Code so
that we send it to the right place.

·         We need to know how many shirts you would like to order, and what
quantity of each size you need, especially if you are purchasing multiple
shirts, and even more so if you are purchasing multiple shirts in a variety
of sizes.

·         Please provide us with your email address that you would like
notifications to be sent to, especially if this email address is not the
one from which you are emailing us initially, otherwise we will simply
capture that from your email.

·         We would also like a phone number, so that we can reach out to
you if we need to update you on anything specific to your shipment that
will not go out in the large, blind, carbon copy email that will go to all
individuals in a particular batch of shirts being shipped.



You can also send questions to this email address, but if you need help
specifically with arranging a different payment method than PayPal, please
reach out to me at Heather.L.Bird at gmail.com <heather.l.bird at gmail.com>.
Once you have sent us your information, please send your payment, to PayPal
at the same address to it you sent your email that is
NYAGDUDivision at gmail.com.



Would you like to win a free T-shirt, or, an additional shirt for free to
your order? Then please see below.



If you would like to be entered into a drawing for one free T-shirt, in the
size of your choice, please answer the following short survey questions, in
an email to Heather.L.Bird at gmail.com <heather.l.bird at gmail.com>. I promise,
folks, these are not hard, or invasive questions. And if you answer all of
them, your name will be entered into a drawing for a free shirt, and we
will conduct that drawing before we order the shirts, so that we can add to
the order the free shirt in the size of the individual’s choice who has one
said shirt. you do not need to be purchasing one of our shirts this year to
fill out the survey and be entered to receive a free shirt from this year’s
order.

1.      Last year, many people missed out on ordering a shirt, or have
expressed that they wish they had ordered an additional shirt. If we were
to do a re-print of last year shirt, would you be wanting to purchase one?
Just indicate a number from zero to however many you might want to buy, if
we were to do such a reorder of last year shirt, in addition to this year
shirt. Obviously, zero represents that you would not want a shirt, and
whatever number above zero you might indicate would let us know roughly how
many people might be wanting approximately how many shirts from a re-order.

2.      This year shirt is worded in a way that is very specific to Guide
Dogs and Guide Dog handlers. We have an alternative shirt design, with the
same message, and logo, except, that it substitutes the words Service Dog
Sparkle in place of Guide Dog Glitter.  You’ve got to love the
alliteration. Please indicate with a number, zero representing no interest,
and other numerical values representing the number of shirts that you might
want to purchase, or, the number of people you know, who are service dog
handlers, who might appreciate an alternative printing of this your shirt,
that says service, rather than Guide, dog on it.

3.      We will never harvest anyone’s data, and would not in a million
years, dream of asking you to provide us with anyone’s contact information,
however, you should please feel free to forward this along to anyone who
might be interested, not only in a guide dog related shirt, but also in the
service dog related option, so that they may, if they wish, send us their
survey answers especially regarding this question and the previous
question. if you know of, any lists, forums, or other venues, where
advertising is allowed, this is very important, that are open to service
dog handlers of all types, where we might be able to promote an alternative
release of the shirt with the service dog wording, please share the name or
names of such venues with us so that we might post about such an
alternative release in the future. We absolutely will not post any emails
advertising this or future shirts on any lists where it is indicated that
either sales, or fundraisers, are not allowed. We would love to get the
word out, but we do not want to cause any hassle, or extra work, for list
or group moderators.



And there you have it folks, if you have any additional questions regarding
this year’s T-shirt, please feel free to reach out, and please feel free to
share this wherever appropriate, and with whomever you think might be
interested.

Heather Bird

President

New York Association of Guide Dog Users