Phew, what a year! Over the course of 2021 we've;
- Taken over our neighbour's space to set up a proper logistics area
- Grown our team to 4.5 FTEs
- Hosted a 30(!) player Magic: the Gathering Legacy tournament
- Ran a 64-player Flesh & Blood Road to Nationals event
- Turned 2 years old in October :)
Team Calico has achieved a lot this year, and we're looking forward to achieving more in 2022! Here's a few quick updates on how we're operating between the end of December to early January.
Christmas Shutdown Period
The Keep will be operating all the way up to 10:00 PM Friday 24 December this year, so you really have no excuse for not getting the Christmas shopping done this year! Don't forget that our Christmas Sale will be on all the way up until then; 15% off all board games and D&D merch, both in store and online!
https://www.calicokeep.com/collections/2021-christmas-sale
From then, Team Calico will be taking a well-deserved rest until we officially get back to work on Monday 10 January 2022, and open up again to the public on Tuesday 11 January 2022.
If you are sending us mail (e.g. a buylist) in December, please make sure you send it so it doesn't arrive within our shutdown window!
All online orders made between 25 December and 10 January will be mailed out on Monday 10 January.
Change to Opening Hours
Nobody likes waiting around with nothing to do while you'd rather be at home either gaming or spending time with loved ones, and that's especially true if you're on the clock!
To help improve Team Calico's work-life balance, we've taken a look at our sales data for the year and have made changes to our opening hours for 2022 accordingly:
You'll note that Tuesday-through-Friday, we're now open from 2 PM to 'Late'.
This change allows our staff to clock out early if an event finishes earlier than expected, or if for some reason, nobody shows up for an event on those evenings.
Likewise on weekends we've found that our last retail shoppers of the day always tend to make their purchases before 5 PM, so there's little reason for us to open later than that on weekends. Even with events on, we've found that a 6-hour window is plenty of time; our Pioneer Store Championship started at 12 PM, and we managed to get 4 rounds of Swiss AND a Top 4 playoff done before 4 PM!
And finally, these changes have been made in a way that doesn't negatively impact Team Calico financially! We strongly believe that our employees should be rewarded for the work they do and not the amount of hours they're arbitrarily clocked in for, so we've taken steps internally to make that happen.
Postage Fees Increasing
If you're one of our online customers, you may have noticed in the second half of the year that we've been moving toward the use of environmentally-friendly and reusable packing materials. This has come at an increased cost to us, which we've held off from passing onto you during 2021.
In July 2021, our courier partner NZ Post increased their service costs across the board. This, along with our increased packaging costs, has forced us to increase our postal charges going into 2022.
From 25 December 2021, we will be increasing the postage cost of TCG Singles from $3.50 to $5.00. All other fees remain the same for now.
We thank you for your understanding and your continued support.
Look after each other, and have a grand holiday break. After what we've all been through in the past two years, we definitely deserve it!
