The Secret Garden Swap**EDIT**

Yay! So excited.

If my budget was not absolutely nil at the moment, I would be all over this one. This sounds amazing. I hope my finances change, and someday this swap comes around again!

This one is beyond me - due to time & budget constraints - but I had to say I will be playing Mrs. Medlock in a University Opera Workshop production of Secret Garden this spring. I WISH I could get in on this one. I cannot wait to meet Mary.

I found the most perfect container for this swap! Now to fill it...

That is so awesome @shandymink Congrats! WooHoo, @vintageveronica ..I think I may have found mine as well.

I love The Secret garden. Would it be possible to run a US-only version of this? I can barely afford domestic postage...

@MorahLaura - I'm waiting to hear back from any International Officers of HAW. But, so far only US swappers have joined. Bear with me as I talk it over with the officers and owner. Thanks!

I am reading this book for the first time now. It's a charming little story and who doesn't love Mary's friendship with the robin. The author is a bit disparaging about India though. My husband grew up in India so I'm probably noticing some of those offhand comments more. I wonder what my daughter would think if she reads this book when she is older.

i just spent $40 on international shipping for only 2 swap packages. i would love to join if we have a US only version! :)

Where did everyone go?! I'm already putting together my package.

The decision about this swap has been reached. For right now it will stay International...but, there are no International swappers signed up. On Feb. 14th I will inform all of the SIGNED up swappers about the location of the swappers involved. If you are worried about shipping costs, please sign up & I will let you know about the swappers countries before I assign partners, giving you an opportunity to drop. It would be a shame to want to be a part of this swap & not join for this reason, when it may not even be an issue...what with only US people involved. =D

i joined earlier 2day, not reading all the messages, about your concerns of postage and i'm hearing you! but i'm from Australia. I hope there is someone in the group that will send too me. As i like this theme.

I am fine with sending to international swappers so long as there is some flexibility about the container. I have a great box to send if I have a domestic partner but if I had to ship to Australia, I think I'd either find or sew a cute spring-themed tote bag because I could fold it and package it small.

I understand everyone's concerns about international shipping, particularly with countries that have implemented surcharges on packages to and from the U.S.

I think we run into sticky situations when we start making exceptions to swap rules, however. We try our best to be accommodating, but as @Oreon will attest, we're finding more and more that this doesn't always seem to be the best policy as often the officer and I will communicate back and forth and bend over backwards in order to find a solution, only to find in the end that our efforts were wasted.

In the case of this swap, since this was set up as an international swap, it's not really fair to any of our non-U.S. members to suddenly change the swap rules. If you receive someone outside of your own country as a partner, however, I think it's a matter between the two of you if you can work out a compromise as to what the bag/container/etc is. But if we start making changes to the swap descriptions at this point, I think it just makes things confusing.

For future swaps, however let's see what we can do about this. Since we started the group in September, I've appointed numerous non-U.S. officers with the idea that they could host regional swaps if they wished. But I suspect that many of them have the same attitude about swapping as I do, which is that I like to receive/send the occasional international package, and I'm willing to play the odds.

Each swap's guidelines, including what regions it's open to, are up to each individual officer--and frankly I'm glad of it, since this is an international group and it's not always possible for us to host multiple versions of the same swap. But since we've had this concern raised, we can certainly ask officers to consider providing additional guidelines to bigger swap packages that might be very expensive to ship. It won't always work, but it's not a bad idea for us to keep things like shipping in mind for bulky packages.

I hope you understand the overall concerns for the greater good of the group. If you have additional suggestions for how we can keep the group as open and inclusive as possible while addressing these shipping concerns, please feel free to PM me with your thoughts as well. Thanks everyone.

I agree with all of the above, thanks @thehappyhoney bee. I think that flexibility with containers is completely acceptable. I am going to edit the swap to reflect that. Thanks everyone for your input!

I forgot to mark that I'd sent! Oops. Getting ready to leave town for a couple of days blew out my brain somehow!