And tonight's contender in the Couples Mixed Wags category... :)

https://globalnews.ca/news/10991323/trump-tariffs-canada-mexico-march-1/

As far as I'm aware, this new tariff WILL impact the tails shipped to the USA for as long as it is in effect. It may even impact boingies that have already shipped and are currently en route to American clients. If this is still in place by the time my next US convention appearance rolls around, it will affect those as well, there's no legal means by which I can bypass this.

In more positive news:

A routine feature of the Boingy Tails Public Chat, found at t.me/boingy2 has been the Unlimited Self-Promo Day on the 1st of every month. This is the day of the month in which everyone is invited to show off something they've made, be it professional or hobby, for sale or just private, new or a long time ago, furry or unrelated.

If you'd like to jump in and participate, you're welcome to do so. Post an ad for your creative services, or show off a cool thing you made for funsies, and of course be sure to check out and comment on what some others are doing too.

Think of it as a one-day pop-up flea-market or talent-show. February's Unlimited Self-Promo Day begins in about 6 hours.

The invitation email has gone out to all orders that were placed in May and June of last year. If you have placed your order June 30 or earlier, you should have received a message from JayEnfield@gmail.com . Sometimes this goes to spam, so if you have an order coming up it may be beneficial to white-list my email address. My goal is to get 80 tails shipped by the end of the month.

The boingy numbers for 2024:

*Got 4 new molds operational and retired the previous mold
*Vended at 3 conventions (2 Canadian, 1 American)
*Sold 358.5 boingy cores (20 to Europe, 94 in Canada, 11 to Oz/NZ, and 233.5 to USA)
*Poured 620 pounds of silicone
*Made 232 shipments via Canada Post (and 2 with Purolator during the strike)

I've anticipated this event for a long time and it's finally here: The Boingy Tails Charity Auction! I’m putting up 11 tail cores (with sleeves and shipping included), as well as 1 swag package.

100% of proceeds will support the selected charitable foundations. Normally I don’t allow any sort of fast-tracking to bypass the wait-list but this is the exception. If you want a uniquely-coloured tail core, or if you’d like to pick up one of my cosmetic-defective cores in a hurry, this may be the ideal time.

Bidding will be open from now until April 13, at 11:59PM Pacific time. All details about the auction, the charities, the tail cores, and the link to the bidding form may be found at https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Fm583LVGrBfIitli8GUnfmzSsmx3paGq6psUtt3C_Yw/edit?usp=sharing .

A clarification of what the Dutch auction style is:

The person who bids the highest number pays one dollar more than the amount of the second-highest bidder. Everyone is simply indicating how high they WOULD go, and then the person willing to go the furthest only has to go just high enough to beat everyone else.

When placing a bid, just ask yourself "if I saw someone else bid this number, would I add on a little bit more to beat them?" And if the answer is yes, then just increase the number until it isn't yes anymore. You do not need to worry about bidding high on multiple items because any winner of multiple items may withdraw some (but not all) of the bids to reduce the number of items they have won.

Also keep in mind that bidding is being conducted in Canadian Dollars, and that every core will receive a sleeve and shipping at no additional charge.

Okay, I can't help myself. Just for funsies, here are the first indicators of how the auction is going and some hints about the bidding numbers, as of March 31:

Participating bidders: 47
AVERAGE (so half are higher) bid for a core+sleeve = $380 CAD (roughly 265 USD)
Approximate total for charities if the auction ended today and no winning bidder took more than one core: $6,450 CAD
Amount I would have received for the cores, sleeves, and shipping if I'd sold them normally: $5,750 CAD
Hours remaining before bidding closes: 323.5

So far so good!

One week remains in Charity Auction bidding!

Participating bidders: 60
Expected benefit to the charities if all winning bidders only purchase one core: $7,154
Item with the greatest total number of unique bids: Fly The Colours High
Item with the fewest total number of unique bids: The Box

Charities selected by the 12 current highest bidders:
*Doctors Without Borders: 2
*Qmunity: 3
*Canada-Ukraine Foundation: 2
*International Conservation Fund: 0
*Evenly Divide: 5

3 days remain until bidding closes on the Boingy Tails Charity Auction. Enough time for one more hint.

Under normal conditions, the value of a boingy tail with shipping and a medium-complexity sleeve included would come to $496 Canadian dollars. 20 bidders have currently exceeded this value on one or more of the 11 cores.

Do remember that these tails will ship ASAP upon being paid for, with shipping, a sleeve, and sales taxes covered in the purchase price, and there is still time to add or modify a bid.

Remember also that the highest bidder only pays enough to beat the second highest bidder, NOT the value of the bid they submitted, and that winners may withdraw some of their bids if they have duplicate wins.

Boingy Tails Charity Auction bidding is now closed. I have updated things accordingly, and now begin the process of contacting winning bidders. If you submitted bids of $500 CAD or more, there is a good chance you have won a core, but it will take me a few days to sort through the winners and allow duplicate winners to withdraw some bids. I will update in the channel in approximately 1 week with the final results and charity payment receipts.

I'm still getting a few last details ironed out, but it's looking like the totals from the auction are (or will be within a few dollars of):

$1601 for the International Conservancy Fund of Canada
$1891 for Qmunity
$2327 for Doctors Without Borders
$2252 for the Canada-Ukraine Foundation

With the Boingy Tails Charity Auction concluded, the funds have been passed to the foundations.

For those curious
Fabulous Fran was sold for $900
Fly The Colours High $851
Big Ziggy $903
We Miss You Sy $902
Chervona Kalyna $580
Heroiam Slava $580
Doomwagger $651
The Spicy One $651
Kilroy $651
Rock Lobster $651
The Box $151

I learned some lessons in the execution of this auction, and I'll have a feedback poll or two soon, but the next one I do will be conducted a bit differently to avoid the complexity and delay after bidding closed. And there WILL be a next one. ;)

Those who ordered in September and October of last year have been contacted to complete their orders. If you placed your order in this time and did not receive the message, be sure to check spam and junk folders, as these emails are often flagged as such.

I intend to make May a 100-tail month. I've set this goal before and achieved 81 shipments. Maybe this time I can squeak out those last 19 for a true Hundo. :)

Having just tallied up the total boingy tails, it would appear that a milestone has been passed.
As best I can tell, I've shipped out 1,021 tails, plus or minus a few.

2021: 43
2022: 163
2023: 232
2024: 358
2025: 225 YTD (if this pace is maintained for the entire year, this will be 613 shipped)

So I have found an interesting solution to my dilemma with the screw types. I had been bulk-buying Robertson #2 bits to include with boingy cores, but it turns out that 1/4" multidrivers aren't as common as I had thought. So I investigated the idea of including a very simple driver, something like an allen key, but it turns out these are only available in standard, phillips, and torx formats. Even if they weren't, most people in most places would only use such a tool once and then probably lose it the same way I lose all of my little furniture wrenches.

But then I found a very cost-effective and yet ~surprisingly~ sturdy little multidriver, and bought a thousand of them, and they're now going to be going out with each boingy core, equipped with the #2 robertson bit but also a small selection of more common bits. For anyone concerned about effects on price, this little guy represents less than 1% of the cost of the core.

This way, everyone is immediately equipped to assemble the core, and then also gets an actually-useful tool as a bonus. I am pleased with this solution.

Full-suit boingy integrations are just great. :)

Reposted from https://x.com/Aster_fallow/status/1927121774698807554

And here we see some proper follow-through on wags. Boing traverse set to maximum. :)

Reposted from https://www.tiktok.com/@_punk_puppy_/video/7507727381063355679

Confirmed: I will be attending fur-eh (edmonton, july 17-20) but not as a dealer. Didnt quite make the cut this year. But still going for the sake of just having a good con. Of course I miiight just have a few extra cores with me when I go, if anyone in attendance is looking to pick one up (sleeves by advance arrangement only, I aint bringing the full inventory along for sure).