get your swap shoes on
Hello readers, to one and all. This is your first warning that swaps-within-a-swap are coming, or to say that Candy, Drink and Book Yuletide Swaps are going to happen again, and we'd like to have the sign-ups for them pretty darn soon, or within the first half of October. Why this early? Because we gotta try and beat the holiday shopping and shipping rush. Please stay tuned for more details and dates.
"But wait", the confused reader may cry out to themselves over their cell phone as they scroll down, "why is there a swap within a swap for the participants of the first swap?" Because, dear reader, we (and by we I generally mean myself, Sleeps, and my co-swaps-person-of-utterly-awesome, Kat, not_madeleine is busy this year) are crazy. But, we apparently like cheer well enough to do this thing, so here we are.
If you are new to swaps, you can check out the candy, drinks, and book swap tags to check on the last 5 years ( yes, really), as well as our FAQ from last year.
A few other notes, and a question for you guys:
Do you have any questions, requests for updates, &tc., to make? Sling them into the comments below or as always, email us at yuleswaps at gmail, hit up Sleeps on IRC at sleepfighter, or Kat at Kat. We're going to be pretty busy this weekend, but we'll do our best to stay in touch!
"But wait", the confused reader may cry out to themselves over their cell phone as they scroll down, "why is there a swap within a swap for the participants of the first swap?" Because, dear reader, we (and by we I generally mean myself, Sleeps, and my co-swaps-person-of-utterly-awesome, Kat, not_madeleine is busy this year) are crazy. But, we apparently like cheer well enough to do this thing, so here we are.
If you are new to swaps, you can check out the candy, drinks, and book swap tags to check on the last 5 years ( yes, really), as well as our FAQ from last year.
A few other notes, and a question for you guys:
- We will be overhauling our pinch hit system somewhat: the exact procedure is getting written up right now but we will be asking for volunteer pinch hitters to prepare any assignment package AND a pinch-hit package, and then matching volunteers with the people who need pinch hit packages. We are considering the logistics of pinch hitters who do not participate in the swap, i.e., after the deadline, and other edge cases but do not have a firm idea of what their participation will look like yet. We hope that this alteration will reduce wait times for pinch hit packages. This seems to be a fairly effective model for at least one pinch hitter from last year, and we'd like to see if it makes pinch hitting easier for others.
- Some other minor tweaks are coming to forms and questions thereof, but will be mostly for our internal use, making things easier come matchups on our end. Swaps Central will also be making a return this year, as we feel that it helped with the flow of communication. In general, our goal this year is to make things go more smoothly and have fufillment end in a timely fashion.
- Thanks again to everyone's feedback on the Drink Swap last year. Unfortunately, we think we won't be changing the nature of drink swap's scope this year so that we can focus on tightening our timeline as mentioned above. We'll think about adjusting things away from the hot chocolate/tea/coffee spectrum once we can get everything sorted out in a more timely manner for everyone.
- We would like to ask participants to respond in the comments: how do you feel about the current price of international shipping? How many of you feel that prices like 16-25$ or more for small packages are going to prevent you from shipping outside the US, if you're from the US? Likely, we will not be eliminating the international matchups, but we always are cautious about the burden of cost of all this awesome package sending.
Do you have any questions, requests for updates, &tc., to make? Sling them into the comments below or as always, email us at yuleswaps at gmail, hit up Sleeps on IRC at sleepfighter, or Kat at Kat. We're going to be pretty busy this weekend, but we'll do our best to stay in touch!