Hi everyone, now that we are past the holiday season, I wanted to make a follow up post for the 2019 Secret Santa Program. It pains me to say that after 3 years and hundreds of gifts sent, we have finally had our first person who never sent their gift. Not only that, but it came from a very unexpected source...a Pinside Moderator.
Pinsider Xerico has failed to follow through on this SS obligation. After his person notified me that they didn't receive any gifts after Christmas I reached out to Xerico via PM and e-mail without any response from him. I checked on Pinside and he hadn't been on in a while, so I opened a moderator only thread asking if anyone knew how to get a hold of him. He responded to that thread saying he had been sick, that he was sorry and that he would ship out the gifts that weekend...no problem, I understand, things happen. That was 17 days ago. I've sent follow up messages since then and posted in the moderator only thread again asking for an update...no response to anything and his person still hasn't received anything. At this point I have no choice but to assume nothing is coming and that he won't follow through. This is so out of character, I honestly hope he is okay but he doesn't communicate with me so I just don't know.
Because of this, I am going to ship gifts to Xerico's recipient myself. I'm not going to leave someone without gifts. Better later than never in this case is the best I can do. If anyone would like to send a something to this person too, just let me know and I can pass on their information to you, I'm sure they would appreciate it. Hopefully we can help send a little belated holiday cheer and on the plus side, we will all get at least one more gift picture post to see.
That brings me to the last thing I wanted to mention. This year was great, we set records for participants, some people were amazingly creative with what they did and participants seemed to really enjoy it again...but one issue has popped up more this year than others and that is the posting a picture of the presents and saying thank you. I obviously can't force people to do this, but it was never meant to be an optional step, it is part of what people agree to when saying they want in on the program. I understand people are busy and it may not happen on Christmas Day, but now 3 weeks later, in my opinion there really isn't any excuse for not doing so at some point. I simply have way to many people messaging me, first of all wondering if their person even got their gifts and second being worried that the person hated them because they didn't post a picture. It shouldn't be that way and it's just not manageable for me going forward. Honestly if you don't have time to take a single picture and make a quick thank you post at some point within 3 weeks of Christmas, you really don't have time to participate in the program. That said, there will be a change for this year that anyone who has previously participated but did not post a gift picture and/or thank, then you will not be allowed to participate in SS 2020. I'm sorry and I hate to do it, but I don't know what else to do at this point. It's not fair to everyone who takes the time to do it and who put a lot of thought and effort into their gifts and it's not fair to me try to take a lot of time and effort on the back end to make up for all the people who for whatever reason don't do their part. If this negatively affects participation and next year we only get 50 people then that's the way it has to be, I'd rather have 50 people that are really into it and willing to follow through on their commitments than 150 who may or may not.
Sorry guys and gals, I didn't mean to be a downer with this post. This year was successful beyond any expectations I had going in, but I also need to face reality that when you start getting this level of participation, certain things need to be said, repeated and most importantly enforced. If I don't do it now and next year we had 200 participants it would only get exponentially worse and that isn't fair to anyone. If any one has any other questions or concerns, feel free to post and/or send a message and I would be happy to discuss further. Here's to a hopefully even better Secret Santa 2020 Program. Thanks again
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