feb exchange envelopes

tomorrow is the gentle deadline to get your february envelopes in the mail. i am still putting the last details on mine.

also, jan is going to take a leave of absence from the organizational part of the exchange. she has a full schedule of fun family events coming up and her spare time has been reduced.

so - i will be doing the organizing and some of the rules have changed.
1
i will start the call for participants on march 1.
2
instead of mixed lists where you send to 5 and receive from a different 5 ---
i will compile lists of participants as they come in.
the first 6 people will go on the first list and the next 6 people will go on the second list.
and so on. your name will be on your list.
3

participants send to the 5 other people on the list.
you send 5 - you receive from the same 5.
if you want to send to yourself, that's fine with me.
i will also include all of the emails - so, if you are missing any envelopes, you may contact the person directly.

if you do not wish to share your email with the other participants, then don't sign up.
or create a new email that is just for exchanges using one of the free providers - like yahoo or gmail. then, if we get hacked by some bizarre mail-artist-hacker - you can just delete that account.
i will be creating a new email account to run the exchanges as i feel that will help me be organized.

PLEASE - do not contact me directly, right now, about the exchange. wait until tuesday, march 1 and we can discuss through MY NEW exchange only EMAIL. you are welcome to leave comments, suggestions, whinging and whining in the comment section of this blog post.

i am adding the emails and the self-monitoring because i will not have time to track down people who do not fulfill their commitment. most of our participants have been very conscientious about sending the mail on time. a few have been a little late. but it always works out. foreign mail tends to take a little longer.

the sign ups will close on the 7th of the month.
if i do not have exactly 6 people when the sign-ups close, i will  post a call for 5-MORE participants.
if you want to do 5 more, you will have until the 10th to sign up for 5-MORE. but if i need 2 more participants and i get 5 responses, only the first 2 participants will get on a second list.
also, if you know ahead of time that you like to do 10, you may indicate *5-MORE* on your first email. then i will add those people to make the last list a 6-person list.

FOREIGN addresses:
we only have 2 or 3 per month at most, so, I will hold those names and put only one per list. if you do not want even one foreign address, then, sadly, you will have to drop out of the exchanges. i realize the $1.20 cost of an international letter can be prohibitive. but, i don't want to exclude our foreign penpals.

today's regular post is below