2016 TCS Christmas Card Exchange?

I went back several pages but couldn't find a thread yet. Although I've been almost nonexistent in the forums this year due to Patrick's issues, I have absolutely cherished exchanging cards with TCS members for the last 3-4 years and would love to continue the tradition.

Could a mod or admin let me know if anyone has volunteered to organize the exchange this year? If not, I'd be happy to. Usually we have some rules such as your account must be 30 days or older and have posted X number of posts so far (I'm sure mods know the rules better than I!). 

I don't decorate until after Thanksgiving but I'm already getting in the Christmas spirit!     

I can't organize (not enough time on my hands) but would love to participate!

That part is no biggie - you just accept PM's of interested members and create a master list of addresses to send out on the date. I can do that, no problem! Pam did it last year and I believe Mel did it the year before. I display my cards on an "over the door" ribbon, here is last year's (fairly early on in the season) - 


And the year before - 

Ok cool! I have never participated on this forum but I should have the money for stamps to do so this year. Even though I've been a member here forever; I finally got a job where I can afford to send them besides to close friends. I'm excited!

parsleysage said:

 
I went back several pages but couldn't find a thread yet. Although I've been almost nonexistent in the forums this year due to Patrick's issues, I have absolutely cherished exchanging cards with TCS members for the last 3-4 years and would love to continue the tradition.

Could a mod or admin let me know if anyone has volunteered to organize the exchange this year? If not, I'd be happy to. Usually we have some rules such as your account must be 30 days or older and have posted X number of posts so far (I'm sure mods know the rules better than I!). 

I don't decorate until after Thanksgiving but I'm already getting in the Christmas spirit! 

 

 

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When this was first started, the whole idea was to be able to include members that didn't qualify for the Secret Santa exchange.   Many people felt excluded because they weren't a member long enough to join Secret Santa, so some of us thought that exchanging cards with long time members, as well as newer members would be a way to include those people.

I'm not a fan of these rules that say you have to be a member for "x number of months and have x number of posts" for the card exchange.

I'm willing to do it....to be honest, I had talked with some of the mods about it earlier and, since it seemed that last year we only had five people who were interested, we thought about letting it slide this year. So I haven't said anything about it.

The reason that we had the "x number of months and x number of posts" rule for the exchange is that people would join TCS just to get cards. And we did have that happen. For myself, I have problems giving my name and address out to somebody who's been a member for a month or two and posts only what they need to post. And then there were people who complained that they didn't want to send cards outside of the US. We have many members who don't live in the US and might want to join in the fun, but felt that they weren't wanted. That's not fair to them. 

If you're interested, we can certainly do a card exchange.

Link is here:  http://www.thecatsite.com/t/329155/2016-christmas-card-exchange

Thanks Anna and Krista!

I don't recall the origins of the tradition, so I can't comment on that, but I agree that it's safer to have some basic qualifications just because we're here on the wide open internet for all to see, and spammers/creeps will usually not put forth the effort to comply with the rules, while legitimate posters usually already qualify, or with some slightly increased participation can qualify by the date. I do see your point, though, and I am sorry if anyone feels excluded!

Thank you Pam for the link and for organizing the addresses again! Hopefully we will have more this year!