First off, in case you were wondering, my real name is Randy and I've taken over the Postcard Exchange from Nige, who did a hell of a job. I just wanted to post some of the details for Round 9 of the Exchange for those who are (or might be) interested in participating. For now, I would like to keep the general structure in place (since I'm just getting started) and then if anyone has any comments I encourage you to either post them here, or send them to me via PM or email if you would rather remain anonymous.
The schedule for Round 9 is as follows:
December: Sign up for Round 9
January: Print and Post
February: Breather
Then in March, I'll start the next round of sign-ups unless something changes in the mean time. What I would ask of everyone who is interested in this round is for you to PM or Email me with your real name and your mailing address so that I can build a list of participants. Once I have your info I'll keep it on file for future rounds. When you sign up, please let me know how many cards you would like to print at a maximum so that I can arrange it so that no one feels obligated to print more cards than they feel up to printing.
I'd also like to say a few (?) words about getting all your postcards printed and sent. I know that in the past, as with many of the exchanges, there have been a few people (perhaps more at times) that didn't meet their obligation(s) to an exchange. I can understand this to an extent - time is hard to come by for most of us, and when we do have some time to spare there is often a long list of things that we would like to do with it. And, while spending time in the darkroom is fun (for me anyway) I also understand that printing half a box of postcards can become an annoyance when there are new negatives to print. With these things in mind - and I do not want to discourage anyone from taking part in the Postcard Exchange -but I feel obligated to ask that you try to meet the obligation if you sign up. All I ask of anyone who want to be part of this is to just try.
I know that every coordinator has their own method for dealing with people who don't end up participating, and all I am going to say about this problem in the Postcard Exchange is that I will have to ask people who have not fulfilled their prior commitments to the exchange not to participate until they get caught up. I'm not going to PM you or email you, but I will keep a list of people who weren't able to send cards for future exchanges.
Please feel free to email or PM me with suggestions on better ways to handle this, or post them here if you prefer - I am open to any and all suggestions! My primary goal here is just to make sure that the most people get as much out of this exchange as they can.
Alright! Now that all that is out of the way, I would like to thank Nige again for all his hard work, thank everyone who has participated in the exchange since I've been in it, and thank in advance everyone who will be in for this round. This is a most rewarding exchange because there are so many different cards from all over the world, and I would encourage everyone who is interested to join up. I''l be sure to keep a list of participants listed in this thread so that everyone can see how many cards there will be.
I've sent out 29 postcards the last round and received 20. Is this the norm? I like the idea of keeping the ones that haven't sent their cards yet, out of this round. I think we have to set particpants' expectations that they will receive less cards than they send out.
I've wanted to participate in these exchanges, but the volume of printing, plus painting responsibilities (my darkroom is our bathroom, and I am limited to cibachrome or Beseler tubes) has kept me reluctant.
Is there still some possibility of limiting the obligation - e.g to 12 or 24?
Also, as a suggestion, it seems to me that it would be useful to have one thread setting this up, then lock that thread. Then, begin a new thread with a list of participants, which invites a series of "I just received a ..." posts.
Finally, a hopefully unused thread of "you've been bad - send your postcards now" posts.
I've sent out 29 postcards the last round and received 20. Is this the norm?
The same with me, I sent out 30 cards and received only 22. I think this is not too bad, some cards may have been sent, but then lost on their way, who will check that. I think it was worth it since I got many nice and interesting cards. Maybe with your card being the nicest and most interesting card for me.
I wanna participate, too.
Up to now, I am a very silent member of APUG. I mainly read, but do not post really much. But "rst" has shown me the postcards from last round, and I love the idea and was impressed by the postcards seen.
So count me in...
Postcard Exchange : Round 9 - Details and Sign-up 
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