Shirley (sjc48)and I will soon be welcoming you to the first swap for this group. She will be coordinating the group along with me! I will set up a new heading later this week introducing this group and giving people a chance to sign up for the first swap, so watch for a different heading soon. The full name will be Friends of the Earth Simple Swaps, but look for FOTE being used as an abbreviation in the heading. You will be signing up with the coordinators by sending your real name, mailing address, GardenWeb name, and e-mail address. You can do that by e-mail as soon as the new heading is posted and post to the thread, too, if you want to join in on the first swap. The reason for the request for information is that we need to know who is part of the group. Nothing other than the GardenWeb name or the first name of the person should ever be posted on the forum. The information will not be used for any other purpose. All who sign up need to be adults. Okay, so much for all of that. There will be very simple guildelines for membership and these should not impact you unless you had swaps that were not sent in the past or if you are a total newcomer to GardenWeb. The new members will be able to join if someone who is a known member agrees to be their sponsor. If we need sponsors, they will be requested on the forum. Once the new thread is started, I think the easiest thing will be if you contact either me or Shirley (the other coordinator) about membership by sending the necessary information. If you are a "newbie" tell us that. I am excited that others are sharing in this interest. My garden is doing so poorly in all this heat and lack of rain that I have missed being able to swap this year and I know many have had to cut back on swapping because of the high cost of sending packages. Maybe this will help members who have those issues and be "Earth Friendly" also. Jeanne

No. I can't, but I think what I did was put the names in the "to" field and then drag them to the body of the letter.....that seems to work, but I think there must be a different way. Thanks, salbwil

I just joined the book club about three years ago, and for the first two years I did not go on the trips due to conflicts with my own schedule. However, this year I will be going to Portland with the group - in fact I believe we are all going this year. I'm not yet sure which the associated book will be. Once we have found the book and the trip, we make a space in the reading schedule for it. I do know that we (they) have traveled all over the US. The first trip was to Savannah to meet the author of Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil. There have been trips to Niagara Falls, Wyoming, Nashville, Key West, and Washington DC. Authors live everywhere! Rosefolly

Mariannese's comment is EXACTLY what the concept of my post (well, actually the WashPost blogger's post) is meant to imply. Not a book for someone who has never read a book, by his or her own choice. But a book that has moved you to some great extent -- whether by teaching you a lesson of compassion or love or understanding, or encouraging you to follow a dream, or simply by transporting you to a different world that you would probably never have the opportunity to experience. The kind of book that you know you always want on your bookshelf to reread over and over again -- one that you must own. And for a child, the ownership factor can mean a great deal, esp if that child comes from a poor (financially speaking) family. (The first book, for a child, that I thought of was Dr. Seuess's "Sneetches.")