The Rules and Guidelines can be found on the Secret Paws Group page. Please ensure you have read them before submitting this form. Here are a few key points for you to remember before clicking I ACCEPT below:
We will have a number of Secret Paws games. They will be one time games with a start and end date. There will be only one group this year - not a family group and an individual group. The spending amount will be $20 not including shipping costs. You should send clues throughout the course of the game. These clues need to allow your paw to guess your identity by the time they receive their gift.
Secret Valentine - sign ups: Jan 10-23. Matches sent on or around Jan 28. Gift must be in your paw's paws by Valentine's day Feb 14.
Secret Bunny - sign ups: Feb 20 - March 4. Matches sent on or around March 9. Gift must be in your paw's paws by Easter Sunday March 27.
Secret Summer - sign ups: June 21-July 1. Matches sent on or around July 6. Gift must be in your paw's paws by July 25.
Secret Pumpkin - sign ups: October 1-10. Matches sent on or around October 15. Gift must be in your paw's paws by October 31.
Secret Santa - sign ups November 9-19. Matches sent on or around November 25. Gift must be in your paw's paws by December 25.
As a sender: You will send a number of clues along with your gift for each game. These clues need to be enough to help your paw guess your identity immediately. Spending amount is $20 per game not including shipping. If you choose to spend more you may do so, but please know that the paw sending to you may not choose to spend more.
As a receiver: When you know your paw's identity, you should post a thank you message with pictures on the Secret Paws 2016 group and tag your paw's parent so they are sure to see the message
We hope this new format will eliminate some of the problems and disappointment from previous years that was caused by the differences in expectations of receivers/senders. This year it will not be necessary to remember to e-mail your paw monthly due to the individual games.
There are still a few conditions that must be met and they include:
1. Following through with a gift and clues by the specified date
2. Remembering to acknowledge/thank your paw for choosing a nice gift for you.
3. Promptly replying to your Group Leader's e-mails. (see below**)
4. Deal with any Secret Paw related problems in a private way. Posting a journal or making any other publicly viewable comments criticizing your Secret Paw cannot be permitted.
In the event of ANY problem or issue, send an e-mail to secretpawleader2014@gmail.com and your group leader will contact you.
*In the event of a problem, each situation will be handled on an individual basis. It will be discussed by the group leaders and we will decide how to handle it. However, failure to follow through with a gift and clues cannot be tolerated because it disrupts the entire game so there will be pre-established consequences as follows: If you fail to follow through one time you will be not be permitted to sign up for the next game. If it happens a 2nd time you will not be permitted to sign up for the remainder of the year.
**Due to the quick timeline from sign up to completion of each of these games, your group leader CANNOT spend weeks or even days trying to make contact with you. We will make 2 efforts to contact you in order to notify you of your Secret Paw. First will be an e-mail to the e-mail address you provided us no later than the 'matches sent by' date specified for each game. In 24 hours if there is no reply to the e-mail we will send you a private message on Facebook. In another 24 hours we will re-assign your match and move on without you. This means you have 2 days to confirm with your group leader that you recieved your notification. This will cause your group leader to have to make changes to the matches in his/her group so this will cause a HUGE problem. If this happens once, you will still be permitted to sign up for the following game. If it happens a 2nd time you will not be permitted to sign up for the remainder of the year.