The NTWF Christmas Card Swap Returns (Signups closed!)
Nov 12, 2019 15:55:19 GMT -5
Ginz ❤ and Thorn like this
Post by Huntress on Nov 12, 2019 15:55:19 GMT -5
I swore up and down that I'd create the thread earlier this year, and last year I made it on the 17th so cutting it real close.
BUT when I made it last year, I started with fishing for interest and when the event concluded, there was a lot of interest expressed in repeating it this year, plus y'all proved to be wonderful people who didn't blow anything up or sold your fellow forumers' sensitive data to Russia, so it feels sensible to just kick it off without much fuss.
For posterity and a refresher, here is last year's thread.
What's the NTWF Christmas Card Swap?
- People sign up.
- People PM me their addresses plus any specific preferences for receiving cards (religious/non-religious/Christmassy/generic winter holiday, that kind of stuff.)
- I PM those addresses to all other participants once the deadline hits.
- Everyone sends a holiday card to everyone else in the pool.
- Everyone gets a slew of warm fuzzy feels staggered across the general holiday period depending on the speed of postal services of the countries involved.
Honestly it's a pretty straightforward event.
What are the rules?
Same as last year, but to sum 'em up as a laundry list:
- Mandatory "be an established forumer to participate", because none of us want to share our home addresses with strangers amiright.
- Also mandatory "make sure you actually have the right to hand out your address" because comfort levels of people in your household may vary. A lot of regions should offer the service of renting a postbox, but that'd be up to you to find out.
- Don't post your address in public. That's the sneaky thing with forums, they look all cosy and intimate but they are public.
- Once you commit, you're sending a card to everyone in the swap pool. So be aware of your financial means for this upcoming period. This is where it inevitably gets wobbly because I have no way of knowing how many people end up participating or where they'll all be, so that's something that'll need to be hashed out on the go. Last year's event taught me that the majority of the expense was actually the cards themselves, but postage rates vary a lot between countries. (In short, this is me hoping that it worked out fine last year so it'll work out fine this year, which sounds an awful lot like tempting fate, but also the best I can do :'D Clearly I should've sent out feedback forms at the end of the last swap. Let's all be reasonable adults and sort out whatever may end up needing sorting out yesplz?)
I'll also copy and paste last year's FAQ as continually relevant:
One thing I did learn from last year is that the deadlines should be a bit earlier, but also that the individual postal systems stretch the arrival times out so much that there's little hope to get absolutely all of them in before the end of the year anyway. So:
the deadline for signups is the 22nd of November
(which is to say, you can still decide to bow back out before that point. After the deadline, the participant list is final and you can already get crackin' on the cards - the addresses might take me a bit longer to coordinate, since the last week of November is a combo distraction of my birthday and Thanksgiving.)
The List of Senders of Fuzzy Things:
1. Huntress and Fraze
2. Celestial
3. Ginz ❤
4. Thorn
5. Thundy
6. Allison
7. Pixie
8. Birdy
9. Liou
10. Twillie
BUT when I made it last year, I started with fishing for interest and when the event concluded, there was a lot of interest expressed in repeating it this year, plus y'all proved to be wonderful people who didn't blow anything up or sold your fellow forumers' sensitive data to Russia, so it feels sensible to just kick it off without much fuss.
For posterity and a refresher, here is last year's thread.
What's the NTWF Christmas Card Swap?
- People sign up.
- People PM me their addresses plus any specific preferences for receiving cards (religious/non-religious/Christmassy/generic winter holiday, that kind of stuff.)
- I PM those addresses to all other participants once the deadline hits.
- Everyone sends a holiday card to everyone else in the pool.
- Everyone gets a slew of warm fuzzy feels staggered across the general holiday period depending on the speed of postal services of the countries involved.
Honestly it's a pretty straightforward event.
What are the rules?
Same as last year, but to sum 'em up as a laundry list:
- Mandatory "be an established forumer to participate", because none of us want to share our home addresses with strangers amiright.
- Also mandatory "make sure you actually have the right to hand out your address" because comfort levels of people in your household may vary. A lot of regions should offer the service of renting a postbox, but that'd be up to you to find out.
- Don't post your address in public. That's the sneaky thing with forums, they look all cosy and intimate but they are public.
- Once you commit, you're sending a card to everyone in the swap pool. So be aware of your financial means for this upcoming period. This is where it inevitably gets wobbly because I have no way of knowing how many people end up participating or where they'll all be, so that's something that'll need to be hashed out on the go. Last year's event taught me that the majority of the expense was actually the cards themselves, but postage rates vary a lot between countries. (In short, this is me hoping that it worked out fine last year so it'll work out fine this year, which sounds an awful lot like tempting fate, but also the best I can do :'D Clearly I should've sent out feedback forms at the end of the last swap. Let's all be reasonable adults and sort out whatever may end up needing sorting out yesplz?)
I'll also copy and paste last year's FAQ as continually relevant:
What if I want to send cards to some of the participants but not everyone?
If you sign up, you sign up to send cards to all other participants because it'd really just be mean to cut someone out of the card-receiving goodness. HowEVER - it'd be awesome if this event prompted people to get together with their closer forum friends in private and have smaller card swaps. Heck, I'd be 100% happy if nobody joined this event but it inspires a lot of cardsending between forum friends this year. More cards = more yay. Just remember the usual: common sense, don't flaunt your address in shady parts of the internet to shady people, etc etc.
What if I joined just to get a bunch of awesome cards but never actually send any myself?
Well, then you'd be a big bad meaniepants.
What if the number of people who join is juuuust above what I can reasonably manage, money-wise?
Mmm, I figure that if people end up beating down the doors to join this swap, it might become necessary to split the participants into smaller swap groups. But the specifics depend so heavily on who joins and what their individual stance is on the matter that my best shot is to just put this whole idea out there, see how it shapes up, and hope that we can pull it off to everyone's best benefit so that nobody gets hurt.
If you sign up, you sign up to send cards to all other participants because it'd really just be mean to cut someone out of the card-receiving goodness. HowEVER - it'd be awesome if this event prompted people to get together with their closer forum friends in private and have smaller card swaps. Heck, I'd be 100% happy if nobody joined this event but it inspires a lot of cardsending between forum friends this year. More cards = more yay. Just remember the usual: common sense, don't flaunt your address in shady parts of the internet to shady people, etc etc.
What if I joined just to get a bunch of awesome cards but never actually send any myself?
Well, then you'd be a big bad meaniepants.
What if the number of people who join is juuuust above what I can reasonably manage, money-wise?
Mmm, I figure that if people end up beating down the doors to join this swap, it might become necessary to split the participants into smaller swap groups. But the specifics depend so heavily on who joins and what their individual stance is on the matter that my best shot is to just put this whole idea out there, see how it shapes up, and hope that we can pull it off to everyone's best benefit so that nobody gets hurt.
One thing I did learn from last year is that the deadlines should be a bit earlier, but also that the individual postal systems stretch the arrival times out so much that there's little hope to get absolutely all of them in before the end of the year anyway. So:
the deadline for signups is the 22nd of November
(which is to say, you can still decide to bow back out before that point. After the deadline, the participant list is final and you can already get crackin' on the cards - the addresses might take me a bit longer to coordinate, since the last week of November is a combo distraction of my birthday and Thanksgiving.)
The List of Senders of Fuzzy Things:
1. Huntress and Fraze
2. Celestial
3. Ginz ❤
4. Thorn
5. Thundy
6. Allison
7. Pixie
8. Birdy
9. Liou
10. Twillie