I'm obviously confused

This is what was posted in the link in the thread where someone asked for an explanation of what a round robin is:

"i start with a theme.. have evreyone send me their names and addresses... I always start the box.. send to the farthest person.. comes back to me last..

object to post flight path... arrivals and departures
everyone takes something and replaces with what they take..
goes from one person to another."

This doesn't make any sense to me unless you're only sending seeds or something similar. I was hoping to start a round robin with drought tolerant plants. The most drought tolerant plants on earth wouldn't survive being shipped from place to place, not to mention the postage.

Surely a round robin isn't a single box that's shipped from person to person?

There are several kinds of round robin. To do what you are looking for you would choose what to send to person two, who would take everything you put in the box, and replace it with the equivalent and send on to person 3, and so on until it makes it way back to the original person.

The difference being with the other type, each person gets more of a choice. If you specify pretty tightly, such as with drought tolerant, it should still work smoothly.

Hope this helps.
Jessie

Thanks, Jessie. I guess I still don't get the point of using the same box.

In some of the RR's, it's run along the lines of a secret santa, but it's not "secret". In other words, once you decide what "type" of RR to organize, you collect names and you decide who sends to whom. There are several ways of making that decision. One way is to draw 2 names at a time and those 2 people send to one another (if there is an odd number of people you'll have to manually switch a couple names around before you post the order). Another example is if you had 10 people in your RR, person 1, sends to person 2 who sends to person 3, who sends to person 4 and so on until you get to person 10 and that person 10 sends to number 1 so everyone gets something. Check the one I ran, which recently ended and it is called NEWBIE Round Robin for a better example.

Megan

Thanks, Megan. That is how I assumed these worked. Makes a lot more sense to me when sending something like plants.

Hi hart,

In round robins that are sent from person-to-person, sometimes the box is changed in its travels. I've noticed that this generally happens when:

• The contents grow beyond the size of the box (needs a larger box for everything to fit)

• The box has gotten fairly beat-up during travels and needs to be replaced


From my experience, the point of not replacing the box at each person's home is two-fold:

• Recycling - "recycle the box" by replacing the address label with one for the next person on the list

• Convenience - you remove things from the box, decide what to keep, add your items into the mix and repackage the things that are going to the next person


Alternately, there are round robins that are more like "exchanges". Everyone gets a name/person to send to. In these, the person receiving the box gets to keep everything in the box. For example, in the 'Tinkling in the Garden' exhange, people signed up, the coordinator sent each participant another participant's name/address, and then each participant sent a windchime to their assigned person. The result -- everyone receieved a windchime. (No repacking or resending boxes in such RR.)

Hope this helps.
-Tif :-)

Thanks, Tif. See, this makes sense if you're sending seeds or hats or something that isn't perishable. But makes no sense for sending plants. I certainly wouldn't want to be sending anyone a plant from my garden in late June or July when we have no rain and 90-100 degree weather.

I agree. It gets too hot during summer months to send plants. This is also why a lot of online-order nurseries don't ship plants in July-August (and some dont' ship in June).

I can't imagine that anyone would do a formal RR (box ship person-to-person) with live plants...unless the plants were specifically intended for the next person receiving the box. ;-)

yes, the most common round robin, is the box going from person to person a list of the flight, is in the box.

.... the word swap is used when people trade with each other. or everyone sends to one person and they are divided and re sent out, I do those also.

Yes, you do!!

We are getting ready for houseplant swap 5. We all sign up, and the moderator of that swap decides who will send to whom, based on their haves/wants lists. The date is assigned and we mail packages all around the same time of at least (x) many plants. Maybe you could try that one out and see how it works, and then you will have a better idea of what to do!?

Hope that helps!! It took me awhile to figure it all out, too.

Good luck

Kelly

great idea kaykay, i know shell be addicted like all the others...