NIRO is currently holding an online auction for a few items that were donated and are looking for good homes! A Rat Scarf, Tie, Shawl, Necklace, Purse and Painting are all publicly available on our Auction page. It's time for our yearly Calendar Contest! We are accepting entries for the 2010 Calendar. All rules and information can be found on the Contest page. The Rat Fanciers of the Lakes will be hosting their 2nd Annual Fall Rat Show on November 14, 2009. More information can be found on their Show Page. There will be a Conformation and Pet show as well as a photo contest! The Summer BBQ was cancelled due to a lack of finding a proper location and conflicting schedules. But mostly location! We are planning on coordinating a meet up after the RFL Rat Show.
NIRO held it's 5th Annual Spring Rat Show on May 23, 2009 in Valparaiso, IN. A fun day was had by all. Show Results, Photos, and other information can be found on the following page: NIRO Show 2009 With the show now behind us we have begun to plan out the events for the rest of this year and are scouting events for next year. Please view our Events Schedule for more information on where we'll show up next! Speaking of events -- NIRO will be hosting a First Annual Rat Days of Summer BBQ in the month of August. All rat lovers will be welcome. Still in the early stages of planning, we are open to suggestions on possible themes, food options, location, and activities. If you have a good suggestion, please send to nirorat@gmail.com More details to be posted soon! NIRO Membership Renewals are due on July 1st. Renewal notices have been sent to the membership. Website updates are being made throughout, including updating all past show pages, news updates, events schedule, chat schedule and logs, articles, galleries and links.
There have been some major changes within NIRO during the past couple of months. For starters, we have a new board in place. At this time we are busy getting everything updated and tying up loose ends so that we can continue with our work. This is taking some time but we are confident that it will be completed soon. All of the hard work of our board members, as well as your patience during this time, is greatly appreciated! We have many new ideas that we would like to put into place with the relaunching of our website. NIRO is going to be geared toward the rat community as a whole and we hope that the new content will reflect that. We will continue to put out newsletters, holding calendar contests, putting on rat shows and get-togethers and the like. Additionally we will be holding spotlight interviews, fundraisers for club as well as rescue, product recommendations, and many other things. There are a few contests coming up. One will involve submitting photos for our annual Rat Calendar contest. The other will be submitting artwork for our new CafePress store. More information on this will be coming soon so keep checking back! We have a few new ideas for our rat shows. Plans are currently being formulated for a Rat Agility and/or Flyball event for those of us fanatics that want to add even more fun to our regular schedule. More info soon! Breeders and rescues should work together to some extent. We are hoping to launch a program in which breeders can join up and donate a certain percentage of every adoption fee to a reputable rescue to aid in better care for those rats that do not have a home to call their own.As you can see we have several new ideas and plans that we can't wait to put into play. We will be updating the website as time goes on to reflect those plans. In the meantime, feel free to join us on the Forum or at our weekly NIRO Rat Chats hosted every Wednesday evening at 8:30ET/7:30CT.
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