Soon it will be 2012 and we’ll start a fresh year with a whole fresh outlook, but before we get there we have Christmas to contend with.

The Christmas fund raising efforts have been stellar, especially with the Christmas raffle that we have to say Pat organised from start to finish almost perfectly even finishing it off with a completely videoed draw with out takes at the end, if you haven’t already seen it and have an hour to spare I’d highly recommend viewing it, it’s WELL worth it.

We’ve had the cook book, the recipe book and the AGPC ™ 2012 calendar on sale amongst other things that people have been buying, all of the profit from these has and continues to go into the rescue fund.

We totally appreciate those that have donated to the rescue find in 2012 enabling us to help more rescues than ever but the sad truth is we need more donations if we are to have a chance at helping EVEN more rescues, so if you can find it in your hearts and you haven’t donated then please do so then we can continue to grow the rescue in 2012 and maybe even becoming a registered charity for which we need to have at least £5,000 incoming donations to achieve.

We’re still about £130 short of being able to help poor Angel the rescue we took on earlier in the year that sadly needs an operation to help her have some sort of a normal life, again if you haven’t donated to Angel’s appeal and you have a few pounds spare this Christmas please think about helping make her Christmas this year the best of her life!!

One last thing, one of the members of our forum John H has asked us to pass an eCard to everyone to say Merry Christmas to you all, you can check it out by clicking on the following link.

Merry Christmas 2011

So as the title suggests in my opinion one of the most important part of a wedding is the vows, whether it be done in front of a few witnesses at a registration office or a large scale audience at Westminster Abbey the fact is we all have to say our vows in one form or the other, to make our bond a permanent one, and to show those that are witnesses that you are willing to sacrifice everything and anything to be there for the special person in your life, I won’t bore you with the whole vows as they vary so much according to religion, preference and whatever else, but the bit of the vows that sticks in most people’s minds is:

“To have and to hold, from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness or in health, to love and to cherish ’till death do us part. And hereto I pledge you my faithfulness.“

So if you haven’t guessed where I’m heading with this already then it’s more obvious than you think, like my parrot tattoos post a few weeks back this is all about parrot ownership and just like in marriage where impulse weddings tend not to work and usually (but not in all cases) ends in divorce, parrot ownership is pretty much the same, if you don’t do your homework and prepare yourself for a lifetime commitment, remember, “Till Death Do Us Part” then you may find you have taken on more than you can handle, or certainly than you are prepared for.

This is why we setup the parrot rescue service to help those that may not be able to deal with the lifetime marriage after all, I’m not saying 100% of the rescues we take on-board are due to people being unprepared but there’s definitely a flavour of this we see quite regularly.

Our mission is actually not to have to rescue any parrots at all, after all this costs us money personally, what with travelling costs, vet bills, ongoing food bills, cages/toys and whatever else, for which we rely totally on donation to fund, this is a big part of the reason we put this site together, we wanted to create a resource to help people understand all the things that they need to know in order to be a parrot owner, I truely believe we have helped many people and hope to keep growing to the point where we are a household name for anyone that is thinking of parrot ownership and help many more, ultimately more happy parrot owners = more happy parrots that can’t be a bad thing, we thank all those who have and continue to contribute to helping us realise that dream.

So in summary, before taking on a parrot, like our dear Royals Kate and Wills think of those vows and make sure you really are prepared for a lifetime commitment no matter what happens, and overall you will be glad to be a parrot owner, just as we hope our two most recent Royals will be forever unlike some of those that preceded them.

So you may be thinking at this point am I completely bonkers and apart from parrots what the hell does this site really have to do with tattoos, and in a way you may be right but indirectly I wanted to make a point about tattoos that is actually closely related to African grey parrots, whilst also giving me the chance to show you some amazing works of art that some people have put on their bodies.

Both myself and Paula have tattoos, I have three (and want more at some point) and Paula has three as well, and for me I know the decision to have a tattoo didn’t come lightly, I pondered for years before I went ahead and got my first one, and why I hear you ask, was I worried that it would hurt? NO … did I think it would cost too much? NO … did I think it would look stupid? NO … did I realise it was a lifetime commitment? YES!! and there be the link with African Greys!

If you are thinking about taking on an African Grey the questions you need to ask yourself are:

1. Are you worried it may hurt when it bites you or one of your family, just like humans, Greys have off days and don’t want your fingers waved in their face, that’s the reality of it?
2. Are you worried about the cost of providing cages, food, toys, vet bills and all the other associated costs of keeping a parrot?
3. Are you worried about going on holiday and having to sort out care, after all African Greys require special care and can’t just go anywhere or just be left on their own?

If you answered NO to all of these questions, great you’re almost there, but did you realise that given the right conditions and diet, your African Grey could quite easily outlive you, therefore the old adage a dog, or parrot in this case, is not just for Christmas it’s a LIFETIME COMMITMENT!!

And whilst I leave you with that thought lets end on a lighter note with those amazing African Grey Parrot tattoos I found when I trawled the t’internet, these really are lifetime commitments … enjoy!!!

Oh and anyone thinking of getting the AGPC logo tattooed onto them do let us know

Here at the African Grey Parrot Centre ™ we have decided that this year we are going to donate a portion of the money we receive from our parrot rescue donations to support Comic relief 2011, read on to hear more.

So how does it work I hear you ask and how can you help.

Well as you may or may not know we operate our parrot rescue service completely on donations that we receive from regular members, people that we take on birds from and people that become forever homes for our rescues, often the donations don’t even cover the cost meaning we can’t take on every parrot that needs rescuing which is a real issue for us.

But we’re getting better at collecting them so hopefully one day we’ll be in the position to take on all the parrots that need rescuing but until that time we have to think of innovative ways to collect more donations so we can do what we do best just more often!!

Enough about the background, you probably may know it’s comic relief at the moment, in fact it’s red nose day today, if you don’t already know that then shame on you where have you been.

So comic relief is all about helping those in need in the UK, Africa and around the world which is essentially what we do (in the UK) for parrots that are in desperate need to be helped, the link is almost uncanny!!

So what we propose is for every £pound we receive over our normal donation level till the end of the month we will give £0.50 yes that’s a massive 50% or half of what we receive and give it to comic relief 2011 to do our bit while the other half goes to rescuing birds … we’d like to stress at this point that not one penny of your donation money goes into our pockets and we have independent members who have access to our donation accounts to ensure it doesn’t.

So do the right thing today click on one of the donate links around the site and do some good for both Comic Relief 2011 AND the African Grey Parrot Rescue Centre ™

The base

With wooden perches

Me wrapping sisal rope round the dowel perches

Mai trying it for size

2 Baby grey’s and JK giving it a go!

A plain swing i made a little more interesting!

They all seem to love it and enjoy the different toys i put on week by week so it is a little more interesting, very cheap too!!!