We've got some BellyFul tea towels that we think your Mum might like for Mother's Day this year. 100% of  profits goes to these guys over at Bellyful, they need it. BUY THEM HERE.

Bellyful provide meals for families with newborn babies and families who are struggling with illness. Bellyful is a national not-for-profit organisation helping mums around New Zealand when they need it most – at dinner-time. Their team of volunteers (generally also mums) deliver frozen and precooked meals to families with newborns and families struggling with illness. Thanks to their supporters, their service is free. They know how hard those first few months with a newborn can be; The odd meal or two can be a real sanity-saver! www.bellyful.org.nz

This is just one more big Caps Lock THANK YOU to all of you that purchased a Christchurch relief tee. Your support has helped Christchurch in so many ways and your generosity is truly appreciated.

As I write this, you’ve all helped raised over $99,000 and counting for Victim Support, Canterbury SPCA, St John and the Salvation Army. So I must thank all of you that have purchased a t-shirt or even just told someone about the t-shirts. We’re stoked to see so many of you get behind this.

We’ve been completely humbled by how many people have offered their support – from people on facebook buying t-shirts for people in Christchurch that have lost everything, to all the businesses that have chipped in and ensured as much as possible goes to Christchurch – it’s really special to see.

With that in mind it’s about time we say about thanks to all of the amazing companies we work with that have helped ensure more money from each t-shirt went to Christchurch. If I knew how to do one of those digital love hearts, I would have typed one just back there.

• AS Colour gave us free tees for the volunteers and reduced their prices for all the other Christchurch tees.
• Uniscreen hooked us up with cheaper inks. Man, we used so much ink on all those tees as well.
• Deadline Express have snuck tees on planes and driven all over town for us.
• Direct Payment Solutions removed the transaction fees for all the Christchurch tees.

It really is at a time like this that people stand up to be counted, and we’re absolutely chuffed that so many people are helping – the real NZ way of doing things. I think one thing that’s definitely struck everyone here at Mr Vintage is how caring everyone’s been; from letting out spare rooms, to volunteering time to help with simple things like care packages, to the UC Student Volunteers trading their beers for spades – it’s all been amazing.

We really feel that it shouldn’t take a tragedy such as this for people to show such love, and it’s really on our hearts to carry this loving and caring nature in to our everyday lives. We as a business are going to make a real effort to help out as much as we can, regardless of tragedy. Watch this space; we’re looking forward to keeping up this level of effort and community spirit in all our future endeavours.

It’s not every day that I say this, I assure you, but the other day something pretty awesome happened on facebook. I know what you’re thinking, and no, it wasn’t that Cindy that I went to Primary School with now has her 4^th child – it was just after we’d listed our Christchurch Earthquake Relief tees for sale...

There were a few people from Christchurch that – after expressing how much they loved the tees and wanted one – sadly didn’t have enough money to buy the t-shirts, as they had already lost everything to the Earthquake. Posting this on facebook, we got to witness some pretty amazing community spirit right in front of us; fellow facebook users from around the country volunteering to buy t-shirts for those in Christchurch. Amazing.

Sometimes I forget that all the little profile pictures and names on our facebook page are actually people, but they are actually all people – really good people! There were more than a few cases, and it was awesome to see – so we thought that there would probably be more people in this situation, and we might as well make it easier for them by matching them up.

It’s super easy, you just fill in a form with your details, and we’ll do the rest; matching you up with someone via a simple email and all you have to sort is the purchase details.

So, if you’re from Christchurch and want a t-shirt, click here.

And if you’re wanting to sponsor a Cantabrian, click here.

100% of the profits from these t-shirts will be going to four separate charities. We will not be making one cent from these t-shirts, and in addition the costs of the t-shirt are markedly cheaper for these t-shirts - meaning a whole lot more from each t-shirt will go to helping Christchurch. AS Colour helped out with cheaper t-shirts, UniScreen provided discounted inks, and Zeald.com worked on a live online counter for free. Their efforts are huge, and we’re stoked we work with such good people.

There are whole rafts of charities that are still in need of your help, and we encourage you to make a direct donation to any one of the charities listed (or any others that we’ve missed). They all need your help, and no one charity is more important than the other. We’ve chosen four that our customers recommended to us and that we felt personally compelled to give to. St John – They fix people, and they’re all volunteers. The Canterbury SPCA – We love animals; they take care of the ones in need. Victim Support – Help people suffering from trauma, of which there are many. The Salvation Army – Providing love, help, support, and clothes.

Our continued thoughts, prayers, and thanks are with those in Christchurch, those with family in Christchurch, and those that have volunteered their time and money to help mend Christchurch and the people of Christchurch back together again

   
 

When something like this happens, trying to put what you’re feeling in to words seems pretty useless. Reading a harrowing personal account (like this) from a survivor this morning, you get a glimpse of what these people are actually going through – but it doesn’t make it any easier – if anything, it just made me feel like we, as a company, still aren’t doing enough.

Doing the normal things like listing a new t-shirt on special, bringing out a St. Patrick’s Day t-shirt range, making reports – all seem wrong. Sure, we made some t-shirts for the volunteers yesterday, and it was really cool to hear them personally saying how much it meant to them, but there must be more that we can do. And we want to.

The obvious solution would be to make a Christchurch t-shirt and donate profits to Christchurch through an organisation. The other, perhaps more obvious attachment with that, is what happened last timeand the opinions people formed of our motives and intentions. I’m not going to re-hash over what’s been and gone on – because it quite frankly doesn’t seem all that important at this juncture. We realise that if we were to release a t-shirt this time round there will always be people that would deem it purely a PR exercise or an act of money hungry ‘vultures’ (as one NZ t-shirt company so nicely put it). I guess the underlying question is; do the opinions of these few prevent us from raising potentially thousands of dollars in assisting with aid and relief in Christchurch? Remember, we wouldn't be making anything off these tees, ALL pprofits would go be offered.

Seeing how much people want to help, through twitter, facebook, and conversations with family and friends – we’re convinced we can raise in excess of $150,000 for Christchurch. That’s what we’ve got in mind, and that’s what we’re aiming for, at least.

But nothing’s that simple, and before making any rash decisions, we figured we’d ask you all.  We’ve had a lot of requests – ever since the last earthquake on Sept 4, 2010 really – and even more so since Tuesdays’ tragedy, to make a t-shirt and donate proceeds to Christchurch. These people, like us, don’t wish to capitalise on another’s misfortune – they simply want to help. We’d be donating ALL of the profits of these t-shirts to an as yet undecided Christchurch organisation; we wouldn’t make a single cent off these t-shirts, we wouldn’t release any other t-shirts during this time – in essence all operations would stop so we could fully focus on raising as much as we possibly could for Christchurch. This isn’t about publicity, it isn’t about controversy – it’s about helping, and it’s about pitching in the best way we can. All we know is the t-shirt.

We’re ridiculously proud to see the way this country has responded; it really makes you proud to be a New Zealander – we just want to help a little bit more. Having said that, the last thing we want to do is so ruthlessly aim to raise money that we, in the process, offend those that are most directly involved – those in Christchurch. This has to be our main concern; it is after all those in Christchurch that we’re trying to help. I suppose it wouldn’t really matter if we raised $200,000 but offended even one Christchurch resident that suffered through this traumatic event.

So we want to know what you think, do we do a t-shirt? We’re thinking about selling the tees for $50 – at the end of the day, it’s all going to Christchurch, so we didn’t think anyone would complain. We also want to know which charity/organisation you think we should be donating to (if we do the t-shirt of course).

If not, what else can we do? we’re more than open to any and all ideas – after all, this isn’t about a t-shirt, it’s about helping.

Like the rest of you, we’ve been absolutely devastated watching events unfold over recent days. It’s a truly horrible thing, but we’ve been amazed at how much support everyone in NZ is showing – it’s really heartening to see.

Again - probably like most of you - we’ve been feeling pretty helpless about it all up here in Auckland, so we got in touch with the UC Student Volunteer Army and asked them if they were keen on getting some tees for the team. They were really stoked, and although something as trivial as t-shirts may not seem like it makes a difference, speaking to Sam from the UC Army Volunteers, it really became clear that it was a real lift to the whole team. He said they all felt blown away by the support, and it just really lifted moral – and with all of them sporting UC Volunteer t-shirts, just made them feel that little more united in their mammoth task of helping clean up Christchurch.

Talking to our mates over at t-shirt manufacturers AS Colour, they were really keen to help out. “With a showroom in Christchurch and staff, friends, and customers in the city – AS Colour feels very much personally affected by the quake. Helping out the UC Army with the tees is the least we can do for the cause – do some great work guys”! We’re totally stoked that they’ve come to the party – and with 750 tees in this first run, and another1200 odd coming for the second run – AS Colour have been incredible in making sure these volunteers are well looked after.

Now we just had to get them down there – Deadline Express got the job done. We got on the blower to Johnny at Deadline and he was only too happy to get on board. He got in touch with some of his mates, and the deal was sealed. He jumped in the van himself, picked up the tees from AS Colour, and they were with us within 15 minutes. If you need to get shit done, Deadline Express don’t muck around that’s for sure.

So we came in early this morning, printed the 750 tees in some kind of record time, and before I could email Johnny, he was at our doorstep loading the boxes. Amazing team effort; and I can’t thank enough the teams at AS Colour for their generosity and Deadline Express for their efficiency and generosity again.

Even though it’s only in a small way, we’re just stoked we could help out. Our continued thoughts and prayers go out to all of those in and around Christchurch, and we’re behind each 2,000 of you awesome UC Student Volunteers – you’ll deserve a beer after this for sure.

Words cannot even being to explain what the families and friends of the Pike River Miners are going through right now. It was a truly devastating accident, and one that touched people throughout the whole country.

Together with NZGamer.com, we’ve decided to each donate $1,000 to the Pike River Miner's Relief Fund Trust, setup by the Grey District Council. We’re also encouraging any other nz websites to follow suit and help in any way that they can.

This is about doing what we can to help those in need, so if you can help, please do. Jump over to givealittle.com and contribute whatever you can. Our thoughts and prayers continue to be with those connected to this tragedy.

Hey Guys,

As many of you may have already noticed, the Christchurch t-shirts are no longer being sold. Unfortunately we’ve had to take down the tees, and we apologise to any of you in Christchurch that missed out on a t-shirt.

The Red Cross were in touch with us yesterday; and despite being extremely appreciative and thankful for what we’ve been able to raise for them and the effort we put in – they asked that the t-shirt be pulled from the site.

From the outset (despite what you may think of us), it was never our intention to upset anyone or capitalise on anyone’s misfortune. The t-shirt, as with all other charitable t-shirts we’ve run over the years – for both emergency appeals and standard charity appeals – was created to help people in need.

Obviously, we understand the position the Red Cross are in, and we’re certainly not wanting to put any further stress on what is already a terrible and traumatic natural disaster – so the t-shirts go.

At this point - and in no way is this a tooting of our own horn – we’d like to finish with what we’ve been able to raise for the Red Cross Canterbury Earthquake Appeal - with your help of course.

We’re stoked to announce that we’ve ended up raising $9,394.13 from the sales alone, and have also decided to top that up with a further $2,000 to make a grand total of $11,394.13 that will be sent to the Red Cross early next week.

We’d like to thank you for all the support, criticism and feedback we’ve received through the many blogs, emails, facebook posts and tweets. We’ve learnt a lot from the whole ordeal.

Cheers, the team at Mr Vintage.

Just to wrap things up from our end…

Wednesday morning it was a bit of a shock awaking to a raft of txt messages from mates informing me of Mr Vintage getting blasted in the National Newspaper via the sideswipe column. We thought, and still think, that the Christchurch t-shirt was a nice thing to do. It wasn’t really that cool of Ana to do her piece. Whilst what followed was, admittedly at times, rather emotionally charged – at the end of the day, we've raised in excess of $3,500 (at last count) from the t-shirt sales alone. And we’re really stoked about that. I think some dudes in Christchurch will as well.

Whether or not you view any sort of profit being made from a charitable t-shirt as being disingenuous or not, it isn’t for us to decide – and you’re free to your opinions.

What we will admit to and apologise for is a few errors of judgement and reacting immaturely. While we stand by a lot of what we said over the course of the day – there were statements that we now see were made in an over-emotive state. The whole issue really stems from a number of miscommunications – from both parties – and whether we should have sent out an amendment to the press release, whether she should have asked us before print; it doesn’t really matter now.

What isn’t cool is the people questioning our level of commitment to the cause – we’re not people who celebrate a tragedy, and we don’t want to be seen that way. So we’ll give some more money. Straight from our pocket. Straight to the Red Cross Canterbury Earthquake Appeal. No profits. No margins.

WE’RE DONATING AN EXTRA $1,000 OUT OF OUR OWN POCKET TO THE RED CROSS CANTERBURY EARTHQUAKE APPEAL. We’re not asking anyone to match our contribution. We just want to show that it's about the support - that's the main thing.

Cool.

We just wanted to touch on a few things that have come to light over the last day or two since we released our Christchurch Earthquake Relief Tee, and the resulting Sideswipe piece Ana Samways was nice enough to write for us. Her article’s here, with a few inconsistencies.

• The t-shirt is $19.95, not $29.95.
• It costs more than $6 to make our t-shirts.
• $6 doesn’t even cover the cost of the t-shirt itself.
• Production costs also include re-labelling, printing, ink, design costs and man-hours.

The reason we’re even addressing this issue is basically because it really pisses us off. BUT, it gives us a chance to be a bit more open about what we do, and why we’re doing it. So this is us opening up; about the Christchurch Appeal t-shirt, and our charity work in general.

1. Why t-shirts? People like wearing t-shirts that support charities because it shows they’re supporting something - much like you would wear a pin for breast cancer, a sticker for Greenpeace, or a daffodil for daffodil day. It’s not like people need the recognition, but it raises awareness to others, and it encourages other people to support as well. It helps in monetary terms, raises awareness for their cause, their appeal week(s), and their brands.

2. Some people – for one reason or another – might not feel compelled to give a straight donation. If those people feel more comfortable giving by way of buying a charitable t-shirt, isn’t it better that they give that way than not at all? As far as we’re concerned, if one person buys a t-shirt that otherwise wouldn’t have donated, it’s all worth it.

3. Yes, we send out press releases for these t-shirts. Contrived? I guess you could look at it that way. I’d go more along the lines of “the more people see it, the more money we can raise for the charity”. Simple, and thanks for the press there Ana.

4. We’re a small company. Yeah, we’ve got a sparkly website that apparently makes us seem like we’re swimming in money – we’re not. We try to help as much as we can with these t-shirts. Not because we have to, not to make money, but to help. We’re not millionaires, we’re not able to make big lump donations, so we do what we can.

5. While it would be reckless to go in to specifics, I will say this. With a 25% donation on a $19.95 t-shirt, we’re barely making any profit on these t-shirts. We’re not losing money, but we’re certainly not making a killing. You won’t find us at the dogs this weekend, that’s for sure. In fact, we’ll probably be printing these Christchurch Quake t-shirts.

So yeah, we’re extremely disappointed that the views of one person have become so publicly aired – but we do know, from all the kind words we received yesterday, that they are just the opinions of one journalist blogger. But it is a bit of a kick in the guts when you raise a whole bunch of money for a worthy cause, and someone comes along so carelessly and gives you shit for it.

And really, what message does it give out to other small businesses. It sure as heck-fire doesn’t encourage people to get out there and give a helping hand. But it won’t deter us. 50 cent got shot 9 times and he’s still going. He’s a real talk gangsta, and so are we.

ANA. It’s really easy to sit back in your ergonomically designed computer chair and surf the Internet, picking out little things and printing them. It’s harder to actually do something about it. Luckily, we’re giving you the chance to.

THIS brand new ‘Ana Samways donation t-shirt’ is available for $1000 online at www.mrvintage.co.nz - just for you. There’s but one t-shirt being printed that reads “I Love Sideswipe” in a lovely little pink heart

100% of the $1,000 will go straight to the Red Cross Canterbury Earthquake Appeal, and if you’re cool enough to make this donation – WE’LL MATCH YOUR $1000. Everybody wins, especially Christchurch ☺

This aggression will not stand, man.

You’ve probably seen it by now – but the Auckland City Mission have an awesome campaign running at the moment that we’re proud to be supporting.

The Auckland City Mission think it’s pretty stink how people in poverty suffer. They dedicate their lives to it. They also think it’s super stink how much more people suffer when it’s freezing cold in Winter.They’ve dedicated this week to really helping out people suffering this Winter. ASB have come to the party in a big way, contributing $40,000 cold hard cash (lol) to the Auckland City Mission.

The money’s in the safe; the safe’s in the ice - You can free the safe. Simply txt 305 with your initials and your choice of FIRE, STEAM, OR WATER to melt the safe. then watch it at www.icemission.co.nz We’ve done it, and it’s wicked fun. Here’s a screen shot of our effort. It only came up with MR but, MRV didn’t fit. I’m an idiot.

Do it. It's good and will make you feel a little bit warm and fuzzy inside.

Big ups to all the dudes on twitter helping out too. @Giapo, @UrgentCouriers, @ASBBank, @VodafoneNZ etc… goooood shiiiitttt.

oh and buy the t-shirt too.

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I actually didn’t get to end up going because I’m such a workhorse I just couldn’t bear to be away from my work on a Friday afternoon. (aka. My people were slaves for thousands of years, ain't no way you're getting a Brother out there). But the rest of the dudes went down to mission bay to pick up some rubbish and said they felt all warm and fuzzy inside. No homo.

Andy put a little nail on the end of his stick so he didn’t have to bend over to pick stuff up. Apparently he wanted to use as little energy as he could, so his muscles didn’t get smaller.

Check out a few of the snaps Joe took.

Horatio. CSI. Yeee Booiii.

Andy using his stick.

Sleazy Hayden. Don't trust his seedy eyes.

Mel was the real thrust behind 'Clean up week'. Here she's shown picking up a shell she thought was rubbish. Bless.

Andy. He's 27 years old.

Hayden's rats tail. Ruby League!

I hadn’t really thought about the charity too much until we started working with them, and since then I’ve seen a news piece on the life of one of these children who was supported by this surgery and the story was compelling to say the least. What these guys do is really awesome, and it’s a more than worthy cause that we’re stoked to be helping out.

As I’ve said, it’s an awesome cause, and over the next week we’ll be running a new ‘loud shirt’ inspired t-shirt, with 15% of each sale going towards the Loud Shirt Day appeal. So keep an eye out and your credit (or debit) card handy over this next week – we’ve got some wicked designs in store for you.

Make sure you get yours in time for Loud Shirt Day on the 18th... and ensure you're not only the loudest, but also the coolest at your workplace.

We’ll keep them on the site till they sell out, so get in quick. I don’t have mine yet, but I’ll definitely wear it – regardless of whether it’s after daffodil day or not – cos it’s a sweet t-shirt. And the money goes to a good cause so don’t think about it, just do it.