Daily Prophet, Issue 9

Member Total Update

84
Registration will close today at
4:30 p.m. Standard
6:30 p.m. PST
9:30 p.m. EST
2:30 a.m. UTC
3:30 a.m. CET

Sign up will close this evening - whew!! I'm excited and slightly awed at the number of people signed up for this swap. This is the most ever and the little twists and turns that have developed from this swap have already made it very unique. I may be the one that organizes the swap, but honestly, each swap is molded by the participants in the swap. The hardest swap, by far, was the first. I'd organized swaps before, but only for up to 15 participants in a small group. HSKS is the first large scale swap that I've organized, so there have been many, many, many things that I've learned over the last few months. The first being that a swap this complex cannot be organized with the help of Swap-bot. I appreciate the fact that Swap-bot displays everyone's level of integrity by allowing members to award stars or points to their swap partners, but it doesn't allow for people to be matched based on some very important criteria, such as allergies, and location. Hopefully, with my husband's help I'll be able to provide a program that will be an aid to complex swaps.

Character Blogs
Character blogs are NOT mandatory, but if you would like to create one, please do so by tomorrow and send me the url. Thanks!!

International - Language Translation
If your first language is not English, please consider posting in both your native language and in English during this swap so that your partner can get to know you and understand your blog. Thank you! (Sorry for the translation. I did this online and I know that it is never translated quite correctly.)

Jos äidinkielesi ei ole englanti, ole kiltti ja harkitse kirjoittamista sekä äidinkielelläsi että englanniksi vaihdon ajan, jotta vaihtokumppanisi oppii tuntemaan sinua paremmin ja ymmärtää blokisi. Kiitos!

Falls ihrer beste Programmiersprache ist nicht Englisch , bitte abwägen Aufgabe in beide ihrer Muttersprache und in Englisch dabei tauschen so daß ihrer Teilhaber könnt kennenlernen du und ich verstehen ihrer blog. Danke! ( bedauernd fürs Übersetzung. ICH tat dieses online und Das ist mir bekannt es ist nie übersetzte recht korrekt )

Swap Matches
Today I will be sending out the last group of matches. You do not know how much I wanted to do that yesterday, but I was very disciplined in dividing the total amount of swappers into three groups and only spending a certain amount of time during the day to send those out. That discipline allowed me to take care of other swap business as well as caring for my family and helping the kids with their homework (not fun!).

The very last group of matches will not go out until tonight because I want to wait until sign ups close so that I don't keep adding to my string of matches. This may be boring to some, but I'm going to give a little explinaiton on how I do the matching.

Name A (Gryffindor) - Name B (Hufflepuff) - Name C (Ravenclaw) - Name D (Slytherin)

The matches go down the line with the last person in the line giving to the first person, so it becomes a little group within itself. I have groups of three, four and five. Mostly groups of four, though. I have groups of those that live across the Atlantic from me, those that live in Canada, and those that live in the States.

Interesting Stats
I am proud to say that we have quite a few Canadians this time around! That brings me to the country stats:

United States (one in HI) - 69
APO (Military) - 2
Canada -8
England - 3
Germany - 1
Sweden - 1

This is the first time we've had any APO addresses. Which brings up another point:
APO - if your partner has an APO address you'll need to obtain a list from the post office that will guide you in what you are not allowed to send to an APO address.

Hogwarts Happenings

Celebrating a Birthday Today!!
Cecilia Kettleburn
Please pay her a visit and wish her a happy birthday