Secret Pal Exchange

Welcome to the W3E Secret Pal Homepage

Overview: W3E is a vol­un­tary “secret pal” gift exchange, with four oppor­tu­ni­ties to par­tic­i­pate per year.

Offi­cial Name: World Wide Wood­carvers Exchange (W3E)

To Join: You must be a cur­rent­ly sub­scribed mem­ber of one of these wood­carv­er lists or Face­book group to participate:

• Wood­carv­er Listserve
• Wood­carv­er List Face­book group
• Wood­carv­ing Fun List
• ASA List
• Knot­holes List
• Fishcarver2 List
• WOM-W3E Noti­fy List
• Or receive per­mis­sion of the Exchange Manager

Note: Pre­vi­ous par­tic­i­pants who do not cur­rent­ly belong to a mail list may request an exemp­tion by con­tact­ing the Exchange Man­ag­er — see con­tact infor­ma­tion below.

Fre­quen­cy: Four ses­sion per year. You may par­tic­i­pate as lit­tle or as often as your time and inter­est per­mit. You may enroll up to two times for the same exchange.

Carv­ing Guide­lines: With­in the bounds of good taste, what­ev­er style and top­ic you wish to carve. Carv­ings may reflect the sea­son, but that is not required. For exam­ple, some­one who carves San­tas can carve San­tas at any time.  Chip carvers can chip, wood­burn­ers can burn.

Size and Time Invest­ment: This too, is up to the indi­vid­ual carv­er, but it is sug­gest­ed that projects be small enough to fin­ish in 2 to 8 hours. (This should not be your life’s work!) If you have lots of time on your hands and want to do more than one carv­ing, to swap with more than one per­son, that’s fine. Sign your work with pride, and date/number as desired.

A Word on Skill Level:

W3E is intend­ed for carvers of all skill lev­els — it is not about how good you hap­pen to be; it’s about shar­ing your gifts with oth­er carvers. Begin­ners should not be reluc­tant to par­tic­i­pate because their work “might not mea­sure up” to the work of oth­ers in the list.

As par­tic­i­pant John Jel­lies said:

Novice carvers should be encour­aged, since they can be assured that each and every carv­er par­tic­i­pat­ing in the exchange will be thrilled by the act of exchange, and the carv­ings.  A carv­ing from one who shares from love or kind­ness is more pre­cious than that from a mas­ter — which may be a trin­ket dis­posed of. 

‘Nuff said!

Process:

Com­mit­ment Announce­ment: The W3E Coor­di­na­tor will send a mes­sage to the var­i­ous wood­carv­ing lists announc­ing the open­ing of the com­mit­ment peri­od for par­tic­i­pa­tion in the next exchange cycle. Com­mit­ting to a cycle means that you have (or will have) a COMPLETED piece in hand and ready to go by the time you receive ship­ping information.

ALL respons­es MUST be through the Com­mit­ment Reg­is­tra­tion form, found at the bot­tom of this page.

Ship­ping Notice: With­in about three weeks of the close of the reg­is­tra­tion peri­od, ship­ping notices will be sent indi­vid­u­al­ly to each per­son who has com­mit­ted to par­tic­i­pate in a cycle. Notices will con­tain the com­plete ship­ping address and email address of the ran­dom­ly select­ed gift recip­i­ent. Pack­age up your carv­ing, drop in a note with your name & email address (and oth­er com­ments if you desire), ship it off and you are done!  When your gift carv­ing arrives, be sure to email your secret pal to con­firm the arrival and to thank him or her.

An Impor­tant Caveat: This is a vol­un­tary pro­gram and no fees are charged. By the same token, no guar­an­tee is expressed or implied regard­ing the qual­i­ty, size or time­li­ness of deliv­ery of a exchange piece.

Upcom­ing In Year 22 & 23 :

86)  Spring ’21 — Com­mit­ment Reg­is­tra­tion begins on the Ver­nal Equinox, March 20 and ends April 20. Ship­ping infor­ma­tion sent by May 10

87)  Fall ’21 — Com­mit­ment Reg­is­tra­tion begins on the Autum­nal Equinox, Sep­tem­ber 22 and ends Octo­ber 22. Ship­ping infor­ma­tion sent by Novem­ber 10

88)  Win­ter ’22 — Com­mit­ment Reg­is­tra­tion begins on the Win­ter Sol­stice, Decem­ber 21 and ends Jan­u­ary 21. Ship­ping infor­ma­tion sent by Feb­ru­ary 10

Ques­tions, queries, posers?  Email the W3E Direc­tor, Matt Kel­ley.  Click the About link in the menu bar at the top of the page and use the con­tact form in the right side bar on that page.  Be sure to include “W3E Secret Pal Exchange Ques­tion” as the first line in the mes­sage section

Last Update 3/22/21