SP12!

Hi everyone,

If you're interested in SP12, head over here to read up on the NEW rules!! Then follow the link from the SP12 blog to sign up! Hope to see you there!

SP12 hostesses

When i got married a woman warned me that having uncommunicated expectations that have gone unmet could cause strife in my marriage. what good advice. when ever i have really been mad at my husband it has mostly been because he didn't do what i expected or react the way i had expected him to, etc...
i have noticed the same thing with swaps and exchanges. those who go into the round expecting huge over the top box complain that some one else is getting spoiled more than they are. for others its in the communication department. expecting emails to be sent to them but never responding or posting on their blogs.
but the participants who go into the round excited top be apart of getting to know others and with an open heart to whatever comes their way, they are the ones who have the most fun.
as a 8 time participant and 4 time hostess, i have had expectations too. i expected people who signed up to talk nice with their pals, to actually send packages out, and to communicate when there was an issue. last round alot of this didnt happen, and i was extremely frustrated. but i had expectations.this round i have some wonderful women who don't need hand holding.
i have 6 kids, i homeschool, and i help my husband who is a pastor. i am rarely home. i have so much going on in my life right now.the other hostesses do too.

there has been alot of complaining. and i dont think many of you know that we have hostesses with new babies coming, special needs children, pressures of college midterms and courseloads, moves, job changes and just the chaos of life in general. these are women who stay up all night with small children while trying to make good matches for 600+ people.

before you publicly gripe, i would ask you to see if you have had expectations of others, communicate with your hostess, and offer a little bit more grace to others.
we all hope the round goes well, each round, and that people fulfill their commitments. if you have an issue please graciously email your hostess. email your pal just to see how their week is, your spoiler included.
but most of all empty yourself of expectations and have fun.that is the real reason you signed up right? :-D


This has been a hard decision because we love SecretPal, but we the hostesses , are taking and extended break after this round is over. SP12 signups will not start the day this round ends. It will be announced at a future date. There are more smaller swaps going now than when SP started, so i am sure you will find one (or several) to join during the break. For a season we will be focusing on our families and serving them. (hurray for Shelby's new baby coming in march!)

we look forward to serving you again in 2008.

Well HELLO out there!

Well as you all know, Secret Pal 11 will soon be coming to an end. I think I can speak for all of the hostesses when I say, we hope you have all enjoyed this round.

I was reading over the comments and on Ravelry and saw that there are some that are not happy with the lack of posting on this blog. I think with Ravelry and how easy it is to communicate over there, we kind of forgot about this blog. I (we) am sorry for that.

Please know that if you have any issues at all you can contact your hostess. And if for some reason you can't get in touch with your particular hostess, you are free to contact any one of us. We will try to help you in any way we can.

So with that, I say, I hope you all enjoy the last few weeks of SP11.

Mini Contests

Hi everyone!

I just wanted to take a minute to let you all know about the mini contests some of the hostesses hold within their groups since there were some questions over on Ravelry concerning them.

1. The contests are something that each hostess decides to do on their own.

2. The prizes for these contests as well as the shipping charges are the hostesses responsibility.

3. The hostesses are already donating a huge amount of their time to SP.

Given these facts, I hope that you can all understand why not every hostess will be able to have contests with their group of participants. It's not because we don't want to, it's simply because we can't. I can't speak for the other hostesses but I think they would all agree with me when I say that we want nothing more than to make our groups happy and to see our participants have a wonderful time. I can't tell you how sad it made me to hear that some of our new participants were disappointed that their hostess wouldn't be having contests.

If you feel strongly about having contests within your group, write your hostess and offer to donate a prize and/or postage for that prize to be mailed as well as time to organize the contest. The only other solution would be to ban all the hostesses from doing anything above and beyond with their groups. I'd hate to see that happen but we also can't have the hostesses who are unable to do something be battered by their participants because they can't.

Sadly, the contests were originally started as a way for the hostesses to get their participants to post to their blogs and interact more with their pals because so many people join SP and then get busy and drop out of contact. We do not promise when you sign up for SP that your hostess will be able to hold contests and nobody should expect anymore than the minimum amount of contact and goodies from their pal as is required in the rules of the swap.

I hope that clears up any confusion about the mini contests. We welcome your feedback and would love to hear any comments you might have regarding this topic.

I hope you all enjoy the rest of the swap!

Chocolate in Packages

CHOCOLATE!

It's something great and yummy... However....!

If you are going to send chocolate in your SP package, please make sure that you put it in a ziploc bag so that your pal doesn't receive yarn that has chocolate melted all over it!

Button Contest

The long awaited button contest! Sorry folks for the long delay, Kids returning to school got the best of me this week.
Please look to your left and vote on your favorite SP11 button! Count from top 1-16 to get the number of your favorite button....Then go to the link below and vote for that number! its that easy :)

http://www.polldaddy.com/p.asp?p=97156

Any Canadians Miss the Boat?

Are you a canadian and missed the sign up deadline for SP11?

I have a spot if you want to email me at s.p.eleven@gmail.com

Do not leave a comment on this blog, as it's a Secret Exchange!

First come first served!

Robyn