Win 2010 SAGA Calendars (closed)

A very worthy cause was recently brought to our atten­tion and we thought we'd sup­port the cause by giv­ing away 10 of these beau­ti­ful SAGA (South African Guide-Dog's Association) cal­en­dars, which fea­ture pho­to­graphs taken by 13 top South African Wedding Photographers. Simply com­plete the easy entry form (com­pet­i­tion closed — view win­ners), find out more about how the cal­en­dar came into being or, if you'd rather not wait to win, order your cal­en­dar and sup­port SAGA and the import­ant work they do.

For those of us who can see and who can move freely through the world it can be hard to under­stand just how depend­ant a blind per­son can be on those around them. Being depend­ant on other people can be debil­it­at­ing, soul des­troy­ing even. But being able to travel to and from work, being able to walk to the shops ... these things, in the words of many guide dog own­ers, have quite lit­er­ally been a god-send.

Terms & Conditions:

• The com­pet­i­tion is open to all except employ­ees of SA-Venues.com and SAGA, their fam­il­ies and advert­ising agencies.
• Decision of judges is final and no cor­res­pond­ence will be entered into.
• Competition closes at mid­night on the 11^th of October 2009.
• The win­ners will be announced here on the 12^th of October 2009 by 12h00 and informed by email.
• Not trans­fer­able and can­not be exchanged for cash.

How the Calendar Came into Being

The 2010 South African Guide-Dog’s cal­en­dar came into being because of the cal­loused hands of a blind man. It seems a strange begin­ning, but one which led to thir­teen fant­astic wed­ding pho­to­graph­ers from around the coun­try agree­ing to donate their time and tal­ent to pho­to­graph­ing guide dog own­ers and their dogs.

In 2007 a young Cape Town pho­to­grapher, Roberta Crumplin, was struck by the cheer­ful­ness and energy and incred­ibly cal­loused hands of a blind man col­lect­ing money in a shop­ping centre.

In chat­ting to the man, Roberta dis­covered his name, Roy, and that of his guide dog, Xass. She dis­covered that des­pite his blind­ness he had put his three chil­dren through uni­ver­sity; that he ran a cane work­shop for blind people, and that he was in fact col­lect­ing funds for an old age home that he was con­cerned about. His abil­ity to do all of this, to move freely through the world, was as a dir­ect res­ult of hav­ing his guide dog. This was a man who didn’t simply sit back and allow life to hap­pen around him, this was a man, who quite lit­er­ally, got his hands dirty and worked, really hard, for everything that he had in his life.

Inspired by his sheer tenacity and determ­in­a­tion, Roberta wanted some way to take Roy’s story fur­ther and so the 2008 Western Cape cal­en­dar came into being.

Roy was one of the first guide dog own­ers to be pho­to­graphed for that cal­en­dar. Shot in his work­shop, his deft fin­gers weav­ing the arm of a cane chair, and with Xass at his feet, Roy was the epi­tome of inspiration.

The cal­en­dar was a great suc­cess for SAGA; it helped to raise much needed funds for its new puppy train­ing centre in Cape Town and it showed so very clearly and elo­quently the immensely power­ful rela­tion­ship between the guide dog own­ers and their dogs. It was decided then to do a 2010 cal­en­dar that looked at the lives of blind people around the coun­try and to use the insight­ful pho­to­graphy of some of South Africa’s top wed­ding pho­to­graph­ers: Jean-Pierre Uys, Joe Dreyer, Greg Lumley, Andrea Carlyle, Dror Eyal, Dirk Visser… Testament to the char­ac­ter and gen­er­os­ity of these pho­to­graph­ers is that almost every­one who was approached said yes straight without a minute’s hesitation.

SAGA breeds, rears, trains and places all of its own dogs. It is an enorm­ous under­tak­ing. Throughout the dog’s life SAGA stays involved and on hand. Your sup­port of this cal­en­dar and of SAGA gen­er­ally is what allows the organ­isa­tion to provide the phe­nom­enal and life chan­ging ser­vice that they offer for blind people. We hope you’ll buy your cal­en­dar today and let it show you exactly what it is that your dona­tion is help­ing to do – afford­ing people who can not see the dig­nity of inde­pend­ence and mobility.

How to Order

To order the 2010 SAGA Calendar, please con­tact Laura Hodgson:
Email: laura.guidedog@gmail.com
Telephone: +27 (0)21 674 7395
Or down­load the order form and fax it to SAGA.

Useful Links:

• For more inform­a­tion about SAGA, visit South African Guide-Dog's Association
• For more inform­a­tion about Roberta Crumplin, visit Big Day Big Picture
• For more inform­a­tion about Joe Dreyer, visit Joe Photography