Ugly Tree Swaps

malhomme

I am the Program Director for the Austin club and thought it would be fun to have an Ugly Tree Swap, the first ever for our club. It seemed like a great idea at the time because next month we are going to work on neglected trees. An ugly tree is probably a neglected tree. So it all seemed to make sense.

But then on my drive home from work I realized that I had no idea what to do once people brought their trees in. You see, my original idea was that everyone gets a ticket for each tree they bring. The trees would be placed on a table and tickets drawn to let a person select a tree from the table.

But I got worried that some people would bring skinny little elm whips and other people would bring good but neglected material. If I did the swap "raffle-style" then someone is going to lose out.

So I went with an informal, everyone get together and trade one tree for another tree that you like. It was mass panedmonium, but in the end it worked.

Can anyone tell me how this program is supposed to work?

Kind regards,
Jim

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malhomme

One participant suggested that it could work like a White Elephant gift swap. But I think this has the ability to put trees in the hands of people that do not see vision in them. Does anyone know how these usually work?

Cheers,
Jim

EarthgirlOK

Maybe it could be a fund raiser with two categories; seedlings and neglected trees. A dollar a ticket for seedlings and five dollars a ticket for neglected trees. It's late and I can't figure out where to go after that.

Maybe not a swap but an auction! Both are fun...

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TreeBay

I think the white elephant things usually let the person with the first number to select from the table, the second can take either one from the table or the first person's draw. (in that event the first person goes back to the table) and so forth.

With white elephant gifts, the stuff on the table is usually wrapped so you have a choice of a "steal" an unwrapped gift, or going for the "unknown." Of course, there is the possibility if it is a really good item it might be "stolen" from you, too. Some people add in variations in the rules, such as: a gift can only be "stolen" once, but that variation is not necessarily the norm.

In this event, most of the stuff wouldn't wind up in the hands of people who don't want it unless they were the last ones to draw and got stuck with it, which is part of the fun.

Regards,

Matt

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pootsie

Mass pandemonium sounds about right to me

pootsie

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