Whether you are rooting for the home team, or inspired by the athletes from all around the globe, millions will tune in to watch the Opening Ceremony of the 2012 Summer Olympics. We know that one group of moms will be celebrating by opening a gift from their very special Elfster exchange!
These ladies all met via a Facebook page dedicated to cloth nappies, or diapers as we say in the United States. The Facebook group, Cloth Bum Mums, has grown to over 2500 members. According to Sally Roper, one of the group moderators, some great friendships have formed from the group. Some ladies get together for “nappucinos” (coffee mornings) and their members have already used Elfster to do an exchange for Easter earlier in the year.
Elfster is now helping this vibrant online community expand into their biggest swap so far: the Secret Olympics Swap, or SOS as they call it, has over 250 participants from all over the UK, US and Australia. The group is planning another exchange for Christmas, and the members are already taking advantage of Elfster’s numerous features, proving elves are handy year-round. They have been able to get to know each other’s tastes using the wishlist and question & answer features, and are letting each other know when the packages have been mailed.
The group is not just about fun and games. Tragically, one of the members recently lost their 9 month old daughter to a rare illness. The Cloth Bum Mums sprang into action. The group held a fund raising night and asked loads of work at home, nappy making mums to donate prizes. The response was fantastic, and they were able to raise over 2000 Pounds (over $3,100 USD) to be donated to the charity of choice for Maias’ mum.
When asked if using Elfster is making the swap easier, Sally laughed and said, “Without a doubt!” When compared to her first exchange, Sally says that this exchange is “So much more fun as only one of us knows who has who, where as last time we did it without Elfster it kind of took the fun out of it for us as it took up so much time and effort!”
As the date for the swap gets closer, “The excitement on our Facebook group about the swap is amazing, loads of posts about it and some nervous mums worrying that their elf won’t like the nappy,” said Sally. All of the members of this swap have agreed to keep the contents of their packages a surprise, and will not open them until the Opening Ceremony is underway, at 9pm BST (GMT+1). Some of the members have even had to turn the packages over to their husbands to hide so that they are not tempted to peek. On the evening of July 27th, these proud and excited citizens will have a little something extra to look forward to. We say: let the (gifting) games begin!
