Sortin' it all out

Thank goodness I had a supervisor...

When LTCs first came about, one of the first things I said was, "Man, who would ever want to do this again?" *snort* The next thing out of my mouth was, "I will never host a swap!"

Well, so much for knowing everything, eh?

I did continue to produce, trade and enjoy LTCs, as well as host a swap. My first swap, Steam Punk, was due to be sorted tonite, as the last set arrived in this afternoon's mail. I fared well with the participants, really - two artists had to drop and sweetly told me well ahead of time. Everyone else's cards arrived on time and didn't get lost in the mail or some other tragedy. Pretty much everyone sent in the required postage and the cards were all incredibly artistic and steam-punky!

One thing I did that I have not seen other swap hosts do is have a 'wait list'.

Including late-comers into the swap when they have expressed interest has been an issue in past swaps. This makes it hard for the original participants - requiring them to make additional cards (more than they had planned). As a participant, it is nice to know the number of cards required prior to signing up, as some artists don't enjoy making large editions of the same card, or don't have enough materials to make extra cards when the number fluctuates.

To solve this dilemma, I started a wait-list for those that didn't make it into the original number of participants. This particular swap limit was 15 participants, and when it filled up, I closed it. I ended up with 6 artists, who expressed interest in the swap after it closed, on a wait-list. When one of the original number had to drop, I was able to instantly plug in the first artist on the wait-list (and he was ready, too!). It worked like a charm. For those on the wait-list who didn't get into the swap, I encouraged the swap participants to contact those artists for trades of any extra cards they may have made for individual trades.

So, having never hosted a swap before, I set to sorting the sets. Carefully putting them in piles along with the owner's envelope and postage. Fairly non-eventful, really. Not having a postal scale was inconvenient, but I just took one of the packages to the PO to get a estimate of the postage...no biggie.

As I type this, all the packages are happily working their way towards the participants this evening. I pray that every envelope arrives quickly and safely at it's destination and I can call my first swap a success.

No, I'm not sure I'll host another swap. But, I know better than to say never.