Secret Gift Exchange 2015

[Duchess]

With a week of deliciously cool weather and the local ren fair season behind us, I know that it is time to look to the future. And that future contains the Pyracy Pub Secret Gift Exchange.

I'm looking for a crew, from far locations, willing to come together for a special mission. This crew will be elite, capable to carrying out the most difficult of tasks...putting things in the post. Sign up now!

Those of you who have been around know that participation in this event has waned substantially over the last few years. I would love to see a resurgance this year! However, please, before you commit to participating in this event be absolutely sure that you will follow through on the terms as provided below. I'm sure you all can understand how frustrating it is to be the person who is still waiting for their suprise well after the New Year...So don't create that situation.

So here's how it’s going to work:

Who is eligible:

• Any current member of the Pub is eligible. If you’ve only been around a few months, I’ll pair you with someone else in equal standing. The understanding being that this would put those newer members on equal footing, as both parties would be taking a risk with unknowns.

• Regardless of membership status, by signing up you solemnly agree that you will provide some sort of pleasant contact with your designated recipient. If you don't I'll be distinctly displeased with you and highly unlikely to allow participation in the future.

What you'll do:

• Sign up. See below for information about how to accomplish this.

• After the sign-up cut-off I will PM you the name and address of your Designated Recipient.

• Sometime in the near future you will put something in the mail, timed so as to arrive before December 25, for your Designated Recipient.

What you will send:

• Often these sorts of arrangements come with a dollar amount limit. I’m not convinced that is appropriate for some place like the Pub, and things have been pretty successful for the last several years without one. Please don't let this lack of specification make you uncomfortable. Also know that you're not buying our friendship, respect or any other sort of attention, so don't bother showing off. We'll just mock you. Things that people have done in the past: Holiday Cards, CD's, dice, a deck of cards, belt pouches, glass pens, etc.... Basically anything goes as long as it is kind and reasonably well intentioned. If this section is really stressing you out PM me, and we'll come up with something or I'll give you quantitative limits to make you feel better.

• The most successful gifts are often hand crafted.

How to sign up:

• Send me a PM with your name (or something the post office will recognize as a name capable of receiving packages) and an address.

• Each interested party must contact me themselves, from their own account. I won't sign anyone up on someone else's say so. Simply expressing interest here is like wise insufficient. You must send me a PM with your name and address. This is a test.

• I MUST RECEIVE YOUR PM BY MONDAY, NOVEMBER 1st. FOR YOU TO PARTICIPATE!

• I will then mix up all the entries and pair up everyone, plan on this taking two weeks. I'll then send you a PM no later than November 15th containing the name and address of your Designated Recipient.

General Information:

• Once you have your recipient, you will then find, craft, beg, or barter something for them and post it off to the supplied address. Please let me know when your package has shipped.

• After the Gift exchange is complete everyone should purge their PM's of sensitive identifying information (like names and addresses) and I will do the same.

• You're free to open your Gift whenever you get it (or to wait for some special day) and post here in great detail about it. But let’s have the exchange complete before we start identifying ourselves as "giver of ...."

• You are free to post here, in this thread, general information about what you are interested in to help your Designated Giver. You're also free to remain entirely mum. Personally, I find the nature of the complete surprise present to be most appealing...

If you've any questions please post here or send me a PM.

Thanks,

Duchess.

[Coastie04]

And thank you for organizing this again!

[Duchess]

Welcome aboard once again!

[Elena]

This year I am staying out. Sorry, but it's more and more difficult to send things outside the European Union. I guess I have been in it since 2010 or 2011.

[madPete]

Looking forward to this!

mP

[Duchess]

I'm sorry the bureacracy has spoiled this for you Elena!

[The Pirate Cassandra]

Sounds like fun!

[LadyBarbossa]

thought about it...but I shall pass this year. Perhaps next year.

~Lady B

[Duchess]

Hello to all four people who signed up. I haven't forgotten about you. I've had some unexpected life events occur these last two weeks. Once I get back on top of that I'll get your information sent out.

Duchess

[Duchess]

A bit delayed, but I'm pleased to announce we are now moving on to the secret gifting phase of this tiny endeavor. I look forward to the fun!

[Capt. Bo of the WTF co.]

So sorry I missed out. Life and the new job kept me busier than a feller ought to have to be. I hope to back for this next year if we are still able.

Bo

[The Pirate Cassandra]

Anxiously awaiting to hear what everyone got. :-)

[madPete]

I just got to my PO box after visiting with relatives and would like to Thank the Pyrate "Coastie04" who sent:

- Deadman's Reach coffee

- the book "The Sinking of the Princess Sophia"

- Christmas card

I had no idea we had active brethren in Alaska but completely makes sense. I will enjoy the bit o' history that book provides and will try the coffee tomorrow morning.

Thank you Coastie04 and all who participated.

mP

[Coastie04]

The holidays have been a madhouse around here, so I'm finally getting around to posting my big THANK YOU to Cassandra for the beautiful knitted (or crocheted? I'm a lubber beyond patching sail canvas) blanket. My 7 month son has been enjoying it for car rides since the day after Christmas when the elder snotty (and at 3 years, snotty in every sense of the word) relinquished it in exchange for a chocolate.

MadPete: I hope you like the coffee. I can't remember if I mentioned in the card that Dead Man's Reach is actually a stretch of beach along Peril Strait near Poison Cove that I've sailed past many times. Though Alaska missed out in the golden age of piracy, you wouldn't know it from some of the place names. We have Murder Cove, Point Retreat, Traitor's Cove, Ford's Terror and many more potentially piratical names on charts around here (and a number of smugglers coves and the likes). Deadman's Reach and Poison Cove do have a nice gruesome history behind them...

[The Pirate Cassandra]

I'm glad you all like it. It is crocheted, and if you would like a slightly larger one for the 3 year old, I can do that. ;-)

[Coastie04]

Thank you Cassandra, but that shouldn't be necessary. Truth be told, though we live in a temperate rain forest, all of our family from the lower 48 just hear 'Alaska' and assume we live in an igloo and fight polar bears bare handed. We've got a few blankets in the closet. However, this one is a very handy size for draping over a car seat and has the nice decorative holes to help prevent babies from smothering themselves and gives him a nice 'tactile exploration' during car rides.

[Jas. Hook]

Thank you Cassandra, but that shouldn't be necessary. Truth be told, though we live in a temperate rain forest, all of our family from the lower 48 just hear 'Alaska' and assume we live in an igloo and fight polar bears bare handed. We've got a few blankets in the closet. However, this one is a very handy size for draping over a car seat and has the nice decorative holes to help prevent babies from smothering themselves and gives him a nice 'tactile exploration' during car rides.

Coastie -

Me brother-in-law is in Anchorage, Alaska. From what I've been told... He fights Polar Bears one-handed, eats Salmon, kicks Moose off his deck, pans gold, and frequents the Great Alaskan Bush Co.

Jas. Hook

[Coastie04]

Coastie -

Me brother-in-law is in Anchorage, Alaska. From what I've been told... He fights Polar Bears one-handed, eats Salmon, kicks Moose off his deck, pans gold, and frequents the Great Alaskan Bush Co.

Jas. Hook

Well, Juneau's about as far away from Anchorage (and I believe the salmon, moose and bush co. parts) as Columbus, OH and NYC. Or, a quarter circumnavigation of Pluto...

[Capt. Bo of the WTF co.]

I just got to my PO box after visiting with relatives and would like to Thank the Pyrate "Coastie04" who sent:

- Deadman's Reach coffee

- the book "The Sinking of the Princess Sophia"

- Christmas card

I had no idea we had active brethren in Alaska but completely makes sense. I will enjoy the bit o' history that book provides and will try the coffee tomorrow morning.

Thank you Coastie04 and all who participated.

mP

I got some of that coffee in beans last year, which prompted me to stop procrastinating and finally bought one of those brass Turkish hand grinders so I could enjoy the brew. It is an historic demonstration in itself making coffee that way beside an open fire during living history events and reenactments!

Bo

[Duchess]

My father is from Alaska and you will never convice me that his tales of killing moose and digging clams under the fridgid darkness and blankets made only of snow are a lie.

[Duchess]

While I've had a box sitting here for quite some time, things have been hectic enough that I haven't had a chance to open it until this week. Truth be told, I wanted to wait, so that I had some time and attention to savor the contents.

I was not disappointed.

A neck knife! A mug! Cards! A little dude!

A bounty of riches, for which I am very greatful.

I feel inspired a new to dig out my garb bins and put together a character just to do the knife justice.

Most kind though was the invitiation to come out a visit with the Mercury crew some time this summer. An invitation which I will try to honor!

[Duchess]

Bo, I'm sorry things kept you from this years exchange, but I'm so glad to hear that things have turned around for you, at least a bit. :)

[The Pirate Cassandra]

Coastie,

No worries. I wasn't thinking about warmth but I was thinkin' that it would keep them from fightin' *lol* I'm glad they are enjoyin' it.

[The Pirate Cassandra]

I'm speechless. Dutchess, thank you. I love writing and I'm even working on a book of short, historical, pirate stories. Not for publication, but for my own use, as my start as a Bard. Also I even have a Pirate Pen Pal Group.

Thank you so much for my beautiful glass pen. I will have much fun learning how to use it. I've long been fascinated with bladder filed fountain pens, and I was taught by Mary Diamond at the Fort Rodman Pyrate Invasion 2015 how quill pens were made.

I look forward to participating in next year's holiday exchange. :-)

[Duchess]

Well, I'm a few days late posting this, but I think we can officially lay to rest the 2015 Secret Gift Exchange. With ever dwindling numbers, I salute those of you stuck it through. Despite my some what shoddy level of management this year, you have come together to provide a small measure of happiness to your fellow pirates.

Thank you once again for a wonderful year, I wish each of you more happiness in this year than you knew in the last, participant and bystander alike.