Plus I would like to offer a special thanks to Deb for the stories she shared with me and the advice she has offered us all. My hat goes off to her. My self and those who have been volunteering to keep everything organized
have had it easy compared to some of the groups Deb has had the pleasure of keeping up with.
Soooooo, if you are curious about what I shared with Tink, I'll be happy to elaborate here. If you couldn't care less, skip this post!
I sent Tink a private message of encouragement this morning.
It was bothering me that someone had upset a fellow cruiser. The DIS and these discussion boards are supposed to be a safe, friendly forum for discussing all things Disney. As I noted in an earlier post, this meets' thread is optional reading. You can choose to read and participate, lurk, or walk away if this community is not right for you. Personal attacks can, and should, be reported to moderators. Okay, I'll get off my soap box and move on to what I shared with Tink.
I've had the pleasure
of organizing many FE exchanges. It is a "job" that requires constant monitoring of your meets' thread in order not to miss anyone who wants to participate. It also requires touching base with participants frequently as questions/concerns arises (ie. allergies, kids' ages, names, etc.). The organizer does sort of become the unofficially elected main poster, which is
usually greatly appreciated by everyone else. Sometimes, things can get a little kooky... but all in fun, as evidenced by my Spring Break April 17, 2011, 4-night Dream cruise, when I organized
EVERYTHING, including some really
silly groups. It was an unusually active and chatty meets' thread for such a short cruise, and everyone was very fun and personable. In addition to the
FE Exchange and
Meet & Greet, here is the list of all the "Groups" that people wanted to make, which I diligently kept track of on our thread (no awesome separate group page like Tink set up):
Cabin Crawl - to tour everyone's cabin to see the different categories since the Dream was so new. I had to make two lists for this:
Cabin Crawl Volunteers (the people in each cabin category who volunteered to show their cabin) and
Cabin Crawl Tourists (everyone else who was interested in seeing all the cabins). This was a monster of a task because the Dream is such a big ship! I worked hard to make sure one of every cabin category was included, and that the tour progressed in a logical order to keep walking from cabin to cabin to a minimum!
Girl's Night Out 11pm Night Club Tour - self explanatory! I wasn't participating, but kept track of everyone for the cruiser who wanted to start it.
Tween Edge Meet and Greet - to help all the tweens get to know each other on the first day of our cruise.
CC Bike Riding group
CC 5k Runners & Walkers
Lazybones Hanging Out On The Beach All Day And Proud Of It group - started after people admitted they had no intention of running or walking a 5k!
My DH Doesn't Get It group - for those DH's who didn't get their DW's Disney obsessions
My DH Didn't Know What Hit Him group - for the DW's who may have influenced the DH's to take the cruise.
Shoe Intervention group for those who admitted they were bringing dozens of pairs of shoes FOR A 4-NIGHT CRUISE!!!
and even a
Cracked Up By Lists group
It really was a fun Meets' Thread, and I thoroughly enjoyed getting to know everyone prior to that cruise! Our Meet & Greet was great because we finally were able to put faces to names!
This was the same cruise that I had to make the large and small FE groups that I mentioned in a previous post. We had one grumpy gal on this cruise who was always trying to stir up the pot regarding the FE exchange. She kept
insisting the FE exchange was getting too large and we needed to split the group, even though the general consensus was that everyone was fine with a large group. [Remember, this was a particularly friendly bunch!] So,
FINALLY just to appease
her, I posted that I was going to split everyone into a small group and a large group, and asked all participants to PM me with their preference. A whopping three people preferred a small group and the grumpy gal PM'd me to say she PREFERRED THE LARGER GROUP!!!! I was actually screaming at my computer when I received her PM!!! And then... I put her in the small group!!!
Still makes me chuckle to this day!
I'm really looking forward to meeting Tink and everybody else!