Mefi Card Club!

February 11, 2018 8:34 PM

Based on the wild successes of recent Metafilter card swaps (latest Metatalk thread with all the previouslies here) , and mochapickle's genius idea, I've put together a Card Club, where mefites can sign up to send cards on a regular basis, and receive cards in the month of their special occasion. Have a stash of stationary waiting to be sent? Interested in getting some awesome cards sent your way? Read on!

How this will work:

1 -- Send me an email at [e-mail] , just saying something along the lines of "i want in"
2 -- I will send you a registration form, asking for:
-Mefi Username
- Email address
- Address to send cards to
- Date(s) (at least the month) you would like to receive cards for.
- Any other info you want the card sender to know.
Once you fill that out, you are in.

3 -- Once a month, between the 1-3, I will send a monthly opt-in form, asking for your username, if you want to send a card, if yes how many, and if there's any info you need to change or any other comments.

4 -- Around the 10th of the month (+/- 1 day), I'll take the number of yes cards and divide them by the number of cards requested for that month, and send out card assignments to people. Then, they send! People receive and are happy!

I'll make sure that everyone that signs up gets at least 1 card sent to them per occasion.

I'm good to start this for March recipients, but the timeframe will be a bit crunched. Whoever emails me to sign up will get 2 forms immediately - the registration, and February's opt-in. I'll cut it off at the 15th, and send assignments then.

Sound like fun? Send [e-mail] an email!

posted by Fig to MetaFilter-Related at 8:34 PM (55 comments total)

Fantastic! I'm in!
posted by Juso No Thankyou at 4:21 AM on February 12, 2018 [2 favorites]

Sent!
posted by PussKillian at 6:54 AM on February 12, 2018 [1 favorite]

In.
posted by jessamyn (retired) at 7:46 AM on February 12, 2018 [1 favorite]

Wow, that sounds like a lot of organizational work. Thank you!!
posted by JanetLand at 8:21 AM on February 12, 2018 [6 favorites]

Hooray! I'm in and eyeing that stack of cute postcards I've been saving...
posted by mochapickle at 9:19 AM on February 12, 2018 [1 favorite]

Woo! I have gotten a lot of "I want in!"s, which is fantastic. Not so fantastically, I apparently can't use all of Google's functions at work, so I will have to wait until I get home to send the info out (it is not fun on a smartphone), which will be sometime late this evening, Central Standard time.
posted by Fig at 11:02 AM on February 12, 2018 [1 favorite]

Ooooh Mefi-specific Postcrossing! You don't specify if this is US-only or worldwide.... *makes hopeful doe eyes*
posted by ClarissaWAM at 11:42 AM on February 12, 2018 [2 favorites]

I want in! But I am moving in a few weeks. Is it easier for you if I sign up now and change my address or wait to sign up? I can start sending right away and I have lots of time before anybody needs to send me anything to get it updated.

Also, this is great and you should feel great.
posted by Clinging to the Wreckage at 12:24 PM on February 12, 2018 [1 favorite]

Yay!
posted by Secretariat at 12:31 PM on February 12, 2018 [1 favorite]

This is so exciting! Thanks to Fig for all the hard work!
posted by danabanana at 2:57 PM on February 12, 2018 [1 favorite]

It's not very difficult to send a card internationally from the US. I mean, you could make it a bit harder getting the exact right postage and special stamps, but if you're not watching every penny you can just put three stamps on and call it good. (Or two forever stamps and a postcard stamp if you're fancy and have more than one kind around.) So I vote, yes, international. It's more fun, anyways.
posted by Margalo Epps at 4:01 PM on February 12, 2018 [2 favorites]

This is a great idea!
posted by minsies at 4:03 PM on February 12, 2018 [1 favorite]

I got a handful of international signups, I was planning on not giving them any special treatment, and dealing with problems/complaints when/if they pop up. (Very not proactive, hah). Separating people into "ok vs not ok to send international" is a whole level of complications I'm not equipped to handle at the moment. Hopefully that works out ok.
posted by Fig at 5:21 PM on February 12, 2018 [4 favorites]

Woo! I’m totally doing this!
posted by holborne at 6:03 PM on February 12, 2018 [1 favorite]

I love it and now I am signed up. You might want to make it easier on yourself, Fig, and just give people the list of "This is who is on the cardlist for this month" and let people pick and choose instead of getting assigned a person they may or may not have any affinity for? I know this is your structure and if you feel good about it, go for it, I was just thinking for sustainability, maybe a simpler structure might be better over the long run.
posted by jessamyn (retired) at 6:03 PM on February 12, 2018 [3 favorites]

OK! I think I am caught up with everyone who's sent a "hey i want to be in this" email, which is something around 30 people, which is pretty rad. From the responses I got, y'all really want to send a lot of cards too, which is very awesome. (and, anyone sitting on the fence should sign up! people want to send things!) This evening hour is most likely the most consistent time I'll be working on this, so please give me about 24 hours after sending an email. (Not that anyone is bugging me or being impatient now)

I was thinking that Jessamyn, but since I'm not keeping track of who sent what, I wouldn't want someone getting like 50 cards and someone else getting 2. I have an idea of how I'll break this up and structure the assignments, and I don't think it'll be too bad. It may shift as we go along though -- thanks for the input!
posted by Fig at 6:20 PM on February 12, 2018 [2 favorites]

I had three international addresses on my list for the valentines exchange and I went to post office to find out how many stamps I needed. Turns out there's an international letter/card stamp for $1.15 that is good for any 1-ounce letter/card to any country that international mail ships to! You can buy them individually or in sheets of four or ten. Makes it easy for those of us in the US mailing to other countries!
posted by skycrashesdown at 7:13 PM on February 12, 2018 [7 favorites]

Awesome!
In, registered, signed up for the month.
After the Valentine's card exchange, all this I'd-like-to-ing and wouldn't-it-be-nice-ing I've been doing for years has finally gotten the kick in the pants it needs.
Cards galore!
posted by Mister Moofoo at 9:39 PM on February 12, 2018 [3 favorites]

‘a’ stop ‘e’ go is how I remember it.
posted by unliteral at 3:14 AM on February 13, 2018

HEY GUYS VERY IMPORTANT NEWS I JUST DISCOVERED
July 1 is International Joke Day
posted by phunniemee at 9:25 AM on February 13, 2018 [6 favorites]

Metafilter: a society formed so people could all receive nice letters and never actually have to answer them.
posted by duffell at 7:07 PM on February 13, 2018 [3 favorites]

How many card-receiving occasions are people signing up for? 1? 5? 10? Asking for a friend.
posted by soakimbo at 8:33 PM on February 13, 2018 [1 favorite]

I just signed up for my birthday.

I might need to have a big scary surgery sometime this year & I'd love to opt in for that but have no idea when it'll be...
posted by mochapickle at 8:42 PM on February 13, 2018

Yeah, I wasn’t sure how many occasions I could do so I just did one- but I plan to mail more than one card. Maybe I should have put more?
posted by Secretariat at 9:24 PM on February 13, 2018 [2 favorites]

I did my dog's birthday, international joke day, and Halloween. So 3! Tried to space them out over the year.
posted by phunniemee at 4:52 AM on February 14, 2018 [2 favorites]

I did 2, Spring and Christmas.
posted by JanetLand at 5:52 AM on February 14, 2018 [1 favorite]

I didn't know if this is how we do things now, so I put Valentine's and end of year holiday/new year as well as my birthday. If there are separate things like this year, I should probably remove them? By contacting Fig? Or hoping Fig reads this? Did others do this? Do I not understand instructions?

Also I have a ridiculous number of get well cards, and I'm not wishing poor health on anyone, but I am always available for sending get well cards. Be well, everyone!
posted by danabanana at 6:11 AM on February 14, 2018 [2 favorites]

Just a rough estimate, it looks like the average # of card requests per person is 3ish.

Some people requested holidays -- I wasn't intending this to take the place of the big holiday swaps. I have no plan on what to do with those requests as of now, other than fold them in with the rest. Maybe I'll redirect them to the big holiday swaps as they pop up? Is that reasonable?

This is all very fast and loose, so there aren't many rules, hah.

If you want to add more occasions to your initial registration, just shoot an email to Meficardclub. Or! Wait until March's opt-in , and add it to the notes section there. Either way.

The last time I looked, I had 3 people asking to receive cards for a March occasion, and 115+ cards willing to be sent, so there shouldn't be any reservation to sign up for something you want a card for. This might be influenced by initial excitement, but if you keep a 1:1 rough ratio, too many occasions doesn't seem like it'll be a problem

(Just to be clear, the march people won't receive 35 cards each, im assuming it'll be 1 card per send , so if theres 30 card senders then each recipient gets 10)
posted by Fig at 7:21 AM on February 14, 2018 [4 favorites]

Yeah, absolutely! The opt-in for sending cards is on a monthly basis. Send me an email at [e-mail], and I'll send you the forms -- I think it's easier to understand that way.
posted by Fig at 11:01 AM on February 14, 2018 [1 favorite]

Exciting. I think I'll add my cats' birthday next time the opt-in comes around!
posted by Secretariat at 11:08 AM on February 14, 2018 [1 favorite]

my cats' birthday

While I suppose it's possible that you have littermates or made a typo, I'm going to just go ahead and assume that you celebrate the birthdays of all cats past, present, and future on one day. Like Presidents' Day.
posted by phunniemee at 12:16 PM on February 14, 2018 [6 favorites]

I do just that! All cats have been assigned the same birthday, which is also MetaFilter's birthday, for ease of remembering and celebrating.
posted by Secretariat at 1:52 PM on February 14, 2018 [6 favorites]

All the cats I've ever had share my birthday. It's really the most amazing coincidence.
posted by JanetLand at 6:02 AM on February 15, 2018 [5 favorites]

Can we change the monthly opt in and out instead to say "is there anything particular you'd like to receive cards for this month" and then "are you able to send as well as receive this month" for situations like kanata's? And the understood thing being that if you can't send now, you pick a month where you can send later?

Idk, I'm spitballing. Share the love, and that!
posted by sciatrix at 7:50 AM on February 15, 2018 [2 favorites]

My cats' birthdays are the day I met them. Hannibal's birthday is June 16, 2012, when he was about 4 or 5 weeks old, and Fergus' is March 31, 2008 (¡Sí, se puede!), when he was about a year old.

(I included Hannibal's birthday on my card list but not Fergus, because my birthday is in April so that month belongs to me. Sorry Ferg.)

((Actually, I had to have met Fergus on March 30, because I get Cesar Chavez Day off. March 31 must have been the day I picked him up from the pound after he was neutered and took him home. Oh well, for most of us pet birthdays are an arbitrarily chosen date anyway, unless you know for certain.))
posted by elsietheeel at 7:55 AM on February 15, 2018 [1 favorite]

Maybe I'll redirect them to the big holiday swaps as they pop up? Is that reasonable?

Yes, I'd prefer that. I didn't include holidays in my requested times because I thought that would be separate.
posted by Margalo Epps at 10:09 AM on February 15, 2018 [1 favorite]

I’m so confused. But I sent the email anyway.
posted by MexicanYenta at 11:20 AM on February 15, 2018 [3 favorites]

Oooh, I'll be interested in June once some art events are over.
posted by Calzephyr at 4:18 PM on February 15, 2018 [1 favorite]

Ok! Yesterday was the cut off date, and I'm caught up on everyone who wanted to be in. So! What happens now?

Sometime this weekend, I'll send out assignments (the info for a person who requested a card in March) to everyone who said that they wanted to send a card this month (the opt-in thing). There are way more cards than recipients, so even if you said that you would send 2-10 cards, you'll only get 1 person to send to this month.*

The rest is on the honor system. I'm not tracking whether or not the cards were actually sent or received.

IF you want in, you can still send me the email and get in! The cutoff date was only for getting a card in March / sending a card to someone in March. Going forward, registration is permanently open. I'll send the monthly opt-ins at the beginning of the month, and the cutoff date will be the 10th, which is when I'll do the assignments.


* I am waffling between either matching 1 recipient per sender, regardless of # of cards willing to be sent OR maxing out the number of cards. Meaning, I have 5 people that want cards and 50 people willing to send a total of 150 cards. Do I divide the 50 up by 5 and give them 1 person each, or if they volunteered to send 5 cards, should I assign them all 5 recipients? The first seems more fair, in that people who want cards in "busier" months (months in which more people want cards) will get less with the second option. OTOH, you guys are all awesome and signed up to send a LOT, and I don't want to make you feel stifled. If anyone has strong opinions please share, otherwise I'm going with option 1.

I'm excited, I'm really hoping this works out as planned!
posted by Fig at 4:22 AM on February 16, 2018 [2 favorites]

Fig, your brain is exquisite. I have no opinions, just lots and lots of cards. If it were up to me, I'd say Trust Fig and see what happens. I just want to send cards!

And everyone else, yay you for doing this! Getting little bits of MeFi in the mail is day-making goodness.
posted by danabanana at 5:02 AM on February 16, 2018 [3 favorites]

I think I'd prefer max if it's just as easy to set up -- it's so fun to send mail! Everyone's going to get a ton of mail regardless.

Thank you for doing this!
posted by mochapickle at 7:27 AM on February 16, 2018 [3 favorites]

Fun! Thanks, Fig. This makes my day!
posted by but no cigar at 9:37 AM on February 16, 2018 [2 favorites]

I think I'd prefer max as well if it's just as easy.

And thank you also!
posted by elsietheeel at 9:44 AM on February 16, 2018 [2 favorites]

You are all most very welcome. Thanks for being patient, and working through the bumps! And for all of the very kind words and gratitude! Thanks x 10000 to mochapickle for the idea and basic framework!

I don't think max card sendage will be any more work, but won't really know until I actually sit down and try to make the assigning happen. If I can reasonably do it that way, I will. Getchyo pens, cards, and postage ready, people.
posted by Fig at 11:38 AM on February 16, 2018 [3 favorites]

oh and anyone who signed up to receive cards in March, clean out your mailboxes and tip your postal worker ahead of time.
posted by Fig at 11:39 AM on February 16, 2018 [4 favorites]

Oooh, shout out to The Underpants Monster for the Meta -- hooray all around!
posted by mochapickle at 12:10 PM on February 16, 2018 [2 favorites]

Oh man, I have one of those big group mailboxes and it's about a quarter mile away from my house so I don't go check it every day - more like once a week. Note to self: check the mail daily in April.

(Honestly I should be getting the mail daily anyway because - and this is the sort of place I live now - someone actually stole one of the mailbox units a few miles away. They unbolted it from the ground and just took the whole damn thing, which is about five feet tall, 3 feet wide, and maybe a foot and a half deep. I can't imagine what it weighed. Although really, all I get in the mail is past due notices and angry letters from collection agencies, so by all means, steal my mail. JUST NOT IN APRIL!)
posted by elsietheeel at 12:21 PM on February 16, 2018 [3 favorites]

OK! I have sent out all of your card writing assignments. If you think you signed up to send cards but didn't get anyone to send to, or something looks wrong with the number of cards you wanted to send, please send me an email. It was a lot of copy/pasting, so a few mistakes would not be surprising.

I am going to make some small changes to simplify for next month (seriously, I am the BEST at Rube-Goldberging systems like this, but am also good at paring it down in subsequent editions), but they should be barely noticeable to club members.

So, in a few weeks (first week of March), I'll be sending the opt-in for March (sending cards to people for April celebrations) , and we'll be doing this again.

Happy sending, y'all.
posted by Fig at 10:10 AM on February 19, 2018 [2 favorites]

So excited! Thank you, Fig!
posted by mochapickle at 10:18 AM on February 19, 2018 [1 favorite]

I am super excited but I caught a big fish my first time around and I am nervous as HECK!
posted by elsietheeel at 10:29 AM on February 19, 2018 [1 favorite]

I bought watercolor pens and blank watercolor cards and they arrived today so guess what guys everybody's getting shitty art. Yay!
posted by phunniemee at 7:07 PM on February 26, 2018 [4 favorites]

I sent two of my five off yesterday! The last three are all West Coasties and at the end of the month, so I have some time rest my hands.
posted by elsietheeel at 7:46 AM on February 27, 2018 [1 favorite]

I've sent a couple of cards now, with another waiting to be sent off. Has anyone received any cards yet?
posted by Just this guy, y'know at 2:59 AM on March 8, 2018

Yeah I'm curious to know if people have got theirs yet. I don't need feedback or anything; I just want to know if I put enough stamps on it and if it made it there in time!
posted by elsietheeel at 7:43 AM on March 8, 2018

Mine are all later in the month but this is a good reminder.
posted by PussKillian at 8:37 AM on March 8, 2018