Listology Secret Santa 2007
Listology's fifth annual Secret Santa is underway! Here's the way it works . . .
- You e-mail me that you want to participate at dgeiser13 AT gmail DOT com
- I will collect all the e-mail addresses between now and 11:59 PM November 21st.
- I will e-mail all participants my snail mail address.
- You make two copies of a music mix on CD. Mixes should be WAV files rather than MP3s so you don't need an MP3-capable CD player to participate (it's true you'll need a player that can handle CD-Rs, but many can, even those that don't explicitly advertise being able to). Please include two copies of the playlist (on paper, that is, one for each CD copy). Some folks had a devil of a time tracking down songs they like from unlabelled mixes in the past. Identifying yourself is optional (making it a Semi-Secret Santa if you do).
- Put the CDs in little envelopes or tyvek sleeves. NOT JEWELBOXES! It screws up your SASE postage if you do sleeves but your Secret Santa does jewel boxes.
- Bring the mixes and two mailers to the post office (or you can buy mailers at the post office). One mailer is self-addressed, the other is addressed to me. You put the CDs in the self-addressed mailer, but don't seal it, and get the right postage on it (really, make sure there's enough postage - each year about a third of the submissions are short). Then you put the CDs and SASE mailer in the mailer addressed to me, and send it off.
- I receive the CDs from everybody, shuffle them up, and send you two different mixes back to you in your self-addressed, postage-paid mailer.
Note that nobody but me will see your address, or even know you are participating (unless you include identifying information on the mixes you create). Also, you don't have to worry about somebody not sending CDs because they have to send me mixes to forward on in order to get any back!
This scheme works if non-US folks want to participate too. You'll just need to put enough postage on your SASE to get it (and the enclosed CD) from the US back to wherever you live (and enough postage to get it to me in the first place).
I reserve the right to close off the signup if we get a deluge of participants. It's never been an issue before, but you never know. First come, first served.
Finally, if you want to do a cassette instead of the CDs, go ahead an e-mail me, but tell me that's what you want to do. If two or more people go that route, great. Otherwise I'll let you know you're out of luck.
Dan
Thanks for taking this over :)
I don't understand how you are going to send the SASE back to me if it has UK stamps on it.
You can buy things called International Reply coupons (or something. It's called "international reply" something, anyway). I did this from Canada last year, although Jim had some difficulties getting his post office to recognize what they were. Hopefully DGeiser's local post office is a little more worldly.
I think it's worth doing, if you can swing it. I still listen to my mixes I received last year. Luck of the draw, though.
I'll see if my post office does IR coupons. If they don't, wouldn't it be just as easy to send money?
Out of interest what kind of music did you receive on your mixes?
Hi, Russa,
You can always use the USPS web site to calculate international return shipping based on weight and destination.
If you have to send money rather then IR coupons that's fine by me.
Dan
The mixes I received were really eclectic. I think my favourite was from Jim (IIRC), which had some Irishy punk, some blues, I even heard some bhangra. I also received a CD full of music from Australia, which was interesting.
Dan, it occurred to me that I clicked on the e-mail tab in your profile rather than sending it to the e-mail address you provided. Did you get my e-mail, or do you want me to send it to your gmail account?
I got your e-mail and replied back to you. Didn't you get my reply?
Hmm, no. Sometimes my AOL account is messed up. I'll write to you from my school e-mail - could you resend your reply?
Have other people got their cds yet?
No one has gotten their CDs yet because I haven't sent out the CDs yet because I've been waiting on one person who has been through hell and high water to get his CDs to me. I'm still trying to find out if I'm going to get them or not.
I don't mind waiting but you could have told us.
Yes, and I was planning on telling everyone what the status was as soon as I found out from that participant exactly what was going on. I'm sorry I didn't realize this was such a high priority for you. I was just trying to be respectful to all parties involved and get the full story before I made any promises. Yes, perhaps I failed in keeping everyone well informed but what with the what with the holidays and my full-time job and all the other obligations in my life I lost track of exactly when I had sent the participant my e-mail of inquiry.
But you've definitely convinced I'm not going to volunteer to coordinate it next year so congrats on that.
Jeez! Talk about blowing up over nothing. If you can't take some friendly advice - you shouldn't have volunteered for the job. Even though I didn't take part in the exchange (don't like trance), I would have expected a friendlier response.
Actually I can take friendly advice. And every other participant in the exchange has been very friendly. And every other participant in the exchange has e-mailed me about the status rather than posting about it on a public forum.
As russa03 points out I _could_ have e-mailed everyone involved in the exchange about the status of the exchange but I chose not to because I really didn't have anything to say other than I don't have anything to say. I was waiting until I had something to say and now I will say it in e-mails to each participant.
As far as trance is concerned I don't know what that has to do with anything. The Listology Secret Santa has nothing to do with trance music.
As i said i was okay with waiting but for all i knew the cds were lost in the mail and i was checking up on it. There is alot of mail this time of year. I never said anything about sending an email to everybody. You could have put a message on the website informing people about the delay. So what if i posted in a public forum. If you put a message up none of the people would have had to send you an email.
You're right, russa03. I could've done a much better job of keeping everyone informed. My apologies.