The current plan is to have the fall swap at Catmint's, near Rockville, MD, on Sat, Sept 10. Directions will be sent out to all attendees as a group blast at a later time.

We have 4 threads in addition to this one set up as stickies related to the swap:
1) Haves and Wants--back by popular demand
2) General Discussion
3) Food
4) Who's Coming

In addition to the traditional threads, Rick is also hosting the swap tool. The tool is meant to be a tool for record-keeping, not a replacement for community. Please feel free to use it or not to use it.

Please check the forum home page to find the stickies. This thread exists for informational purposes only.

Information from Rick on using the swap tool, located at http://garden.org/apps/swap/vi...

The NGA site has this thing called a 'swap tool'. Usually, it is used for seed swaps. @Critterologist , aka Jill, used it for the 2016 Spring Swap. All things considered, it worked well.
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To use the tool, you . . .

1. Register for the swap. Currently, registration is set to open on Monday, 11-July.

2. Once registered, you build your own 'swap list'. This is a list of plants/seeds/bulbs/whatever that you have available for trade. You enter the name of the item and how many you have available. There is the ability to attach a photo and also a brief description or note.

3. On Aug 20, all registered users start to receive tickets to call dibs on items available. Each user gets a fresh batch of tickets each day to use.

4. Once trading begins, you are able to check out the master swap list. Items are listed alphabetically, Each entry shows who is offering the item, the item name, quantity available, quantity per offer, notes, optional photo.

5. You can call dibs on an item any time, as long as you have tickets available. Again, each user gets more tickets every day.

The swap tool does all of the accounting for you. Each time someone calls dibs on an item that you are offering, the quantity available for that item is automatically reduced by one.

The system has a 'bought' list of items that you have called dibs on. It also has a 'sold' list of items that you are offering that other people want.

The swap trading is scheduled to end on Friday, 09-Sept and the actual gathering is being held on Saturday, 10-Sept.

While the swap is running, it's a good idea to check your 'sold' list daily so that you can pull everything together. That way, come the morning of 10-Sept, all you need to do is load up the car and head on over.
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I've left out some details, but this should give you an idea.

Registration opens on Monday, 11-Jul-2016.

Let me know if you have any questions.

From Rick, instructions for making an item available on the swap tool:

When adding an item to your swap list, there is a line on the form labelled 'Availability'. Setting this to Show it and make available for trade. makes the item available to add to all swaps that you are registered for. It DOES NOT actually make it available.

To actually make it available for trade, click on View your list. Each swap that you are currently participating in will have a column to the left. Our 2016 Fall Swap is #9.

For each item that you have made available, you will see a grey check mark in the appropriate swap column

Click on that check mark, and it will turn green.

That item is now available to participants of that particular swap.

Let me know if you have any questions.