ApproximatelyInfinite

^yeah, that's what i meant. bad phrasing on my part :P

true. but i feel like we should tell someone other than debs? i don't know, might be overkill. but i still like the idea of sending a coverletter in case debs "forgets" to tell them or something like that. by EMI, i just meant send the letter to the EMI address we have (not like EMI themselves) :D

if that works (i just PMed kimchi [pete] asking if he would scope it out for us), then i still think we should tell debs of our plans and send a general letter to EMI and put one in the mailbox so they know to check it more often in case they use a P.O. box for usual mail, but then the postcards part itself is perfect!!!

oooh, yes, i think kimchi is going! we have to ask him to check! if there's an actual mailbox, that might solve everything!

mail slot at the bakery...hmm. that might change things! :D i hope lori took a picture...i don't remember seeing a mailslot. glad there is one!

you know you're addicted to coldplay when you completely neglect your uni work to dive into a project of sending the band hundreds of postcards and write a letter to the band instead of the film analysis that's due friday morning :dozey:

^i'll see if i can find any good ones, or any butterfly themed things in general. i actually think they might sell butterfly postcards at borders :stunned:. i'll check this weekend.

:nice: it's definitely easy to take things the wrong way on here. i'm chelsea, BTW :D this time i'm REALLY leaving, at least for a while, because i need dinner. but i need to STOP POSTING! :lol:

oh no! what? if i did, i promise i didn't mean to! :sad: i meant me saying "check the first post under the second spoiler" to be me agreeing with you! i'm sorry if you didn't see it that way or that message got lost. i was saying that last night, i had written something to that affect in the draft of the "rules" i wrote: i thought you were saying the same thing, so that's why i refered to that bit in the first post. if you weren't saying the same thing, i'm sorry. if i'm pissing people off i definitely need to stop and actually do some uni work. this is meant to be fun, not make us at odds.

i think that's too iffy, yeah, too much relying on other people. i think we should really rely on ourselves and the international postal service only, but that's just me. WHAT AM I DOING STILL ARGUING THIS?!

i'm back, i'm sorry. i kind of disagree with the part in bold. there's never been any guarantee of anyone being able to see the band before or after concerts, so i think it would be kind of a waste for someone to bring them all and then not get to deliver them. i think someone that a person at the gig could easily get the cards to (like a security guard) wouldnt have band or high management contact anyway, and most of the really important people leave the venue VERY quickly once the boys come offstage. i think this is one of the larger loopholes where things could fail. if there was a guarantee of getting band or management contact, then it would be fine, but there never is. though maybe ian and jen have contacts that i don't know about. EDIT: and you just can't really bring in some huge bag or box to a concert venue. i don't think theyd let you bring it in, at least in the USA. and about the part about saying it's just thanks: check the first post, the last paragraph in the second spoiler :wink:

you know i'm good at it :lol: agreed about letting it rest. i need to do work anyway. :vanish: :lipsrsealed2: email to debs will be out next week. LAST TIME I REPEAT MYSELF, I PROMISE! :D

we've been debating this for two days now, and half of us seem to think it would work fine, and the other half seem to think it has too many loopholes and dangers (well, maybe that's just me, but i want to play it SAFE!) i agree about them arriving at once, but i think it's potentially disasterous for reasons that i wrote above. this weekend lore and i are emailing debs to see if she has a better idea (if she even responds :P).

i love that image too, but i think it's hard to get in real contact with people that could tell the guys that there's a box waiting for them. there's always debs, yeah, but sometimes she can take a long while to reply to messages. i just don't really think we can rely on anyone else besides the coldplaying network to get this done. maybe i'm just being a big old pessimist, though :P i just don't want this to get caught in some loophole in the plan, like them getting destroyed by rain or stolen by a hobo in belsize park, or one of us waiting on a member of the coldplay camp to meet up with and them never arriving. i personally would be really crushed if we got so far only to have the, destroyed or undelivered! that's why i'm so big on mailing direct, but i also need to be shut up quite often :D

i'm operating under the assumption that the postcards will be mailed direct to EMI (or the bakery, if we're lucky enough to get an address, but i'm doubtful). the "mail to a person to have them dropped off thing" might work, definitely, and i think it depends on what people say, but personally i'm really wary about that for a number of reasons. i don't think we should make anyone from the coldplay camp have to meet us anywhere to pick them up, and if the person was just going to drop them off at the EMI HQ, why couldn't everyone just mail them direct? dropping them off at the bakery, too, seems a bit unsafe to me, since it's really more of a studio and hangout spot than an office, and it is empty a lot of the time. a bag/box of cards out in the rain wouldn't be so good, and then there's the whole matter of getting them beyond the locked gate. as for mailing times, that was just me guessing :D. i don't have a lot of experience with this stuff, but if we're looking to go cheap with postcards, i think we need to allow lots of time. i mean, from what i've heard, the UK mail system is pretty great since its a small country and things often arrive the next day, but to be safe, i'd say mail at least 4 days in advance if you live in the UK. feel free to internet search, though, and see if you can come up with more accurate times :smiley:

UK can probably be mailed a week before the deadline. europe probably 1.5-2 weeks before. US, 2.5-3 weeks before everywhere else 4-5 weeks before. that's just me estimating based on what people have said and personal experience, but i don't think the post office could really give us *that* accurate of a timeline, since it really depends on the individual piece of mail. i mailed 15 postcards from holland on the same day in the same mailbox to the same state in the US, and arrival time varied from 3 days to a month. those times might be a bit generous, too, but better safe than sorry. and i think that no one should send anything until everyone agrees on a GO date, because then it'll look more like a unifed effort, and that's what the beauty of all this is IMO.

i haven't really, no. i'm writing about 5 papers at once for uni right now, so i don't have tons of time until friday night to work more on serious writing besides one or two tweaks. i really do need help with an ending, though, since i've always been bad at those.

check the first post, under the second spoiler. i wrote that list of rules last night and it needs to be updated, but i will update it soonish with more things we've come up with, like sending a max. of two and using a template (only if you want). we hope to have an address to mail these to once we ask debs next week. from what i understand, lore and i are working on an email to send to her to tell her our purpose and where to send them, if there's a better place than just EMI. we really need to hammer out dates, i think. that to me is the next step.

agreed that it should be to all four guys, or just "coldplay" or "coldplay and crew." BYE LORE! you're awesome :D and i like the idea of sending two. i originally jumped the gun and said a lot mroe, but now that i realize how many people want to do it, i think that this will be huge either way! i'll probably make both of mine, though, since its hard to find connecticut postcards :rolleyes:. i've already been thinking up ideas and will definitely be using photoshop, but i think mine will be based on lyrics :D

i agree about protecting the handmade postcards, but personally i'm a bit unsure about envelopes. i wonder if a) some people will get overexcited and include other things in the envelope, which would make the whole thing a bit unfair, and b) some people are already worried about cost, and envelopes are more expensive than postcards. to protect mine, i have this clear plastic seal stuff, which i usually use when i send hommade postcards. its like a sheet of clear plastic that you use to cover both sides. it comes in a big roll and is really useful for other things, so i feel that's a good alternative to envelopes :D

very good point about the christmas rush of mail. i didn't really think about that. i guess we'd have to start much earlier, then, but also, the postal services are usually like the millitary with these sorts of things. i think early december, then? i just think that if we do it too early, the whole idea of it tying in with the holidays is lost a bit. how do you mean deciding "with the band" though? i think i just feel like debs at best will give us an address. i don't think they're going to really bend over backwards or give us a date when they'd like to recieve it. she'll probably be like "aww, sweet" and then forget about it until the postcards come in. i don't really think we can rely on management for much at all. i do wonder about this. in the computer age, i bet its less than it would have been 10 years ago (the beatles got thousands of letters every day; i bet coldplay gets like, 2000 in a year?). i bet they still get a decent amount, though, especially because they take a while when they do reply.

i think we should email debs sometime next week, saying the purpose and asking for an address, and physically mail the cover letter to EMI (or wherever debs sends) sometime in early/mid november, and then the actual postcards sent a week after that. i think the template should be optional rather than compulsory, but that we should all include a common logo pasted on, or at the very least, write "POSTCARDS FROM FAR AWAY PROJECT" really big on it :P i also asked semy about a logo, and he seems willing :D. i love the ones that we have so far, but i think we should get a lot and then vote on the best.

i was thinking we could say the word GO for sending (especially people in far away countries) like, november 24, (but send the cover letter a week earlier), and then say STOP sending like december 15, especially for people in closer countries. just my two cents, though.

^are postcards really any more likely than envelopes to get lost in the mail? i feel like it's a pretty even chance either way for some to get lost. and mailing envelopes costs a bit more, if some people are worried about that. about the cover letter: i was thinking (tell me what you all think) that we'd send the letter to debs via email AND mail hardcopies to EMI, several of them, so the chances of them opening ONE of them goes up. if we mail several copies (from several different people, even), the odds that they'll pick up one of them and open it goes up, so the odds that they'll be aware of our project goes up.

you can print them using your own printer! get an index card or photo paper that's 4X6 inches (10X15 cm) and set up your printer to print them. just write on the other side, add a stamp, and throw it in the mail! :D i've been doing it for years--it definitely works. but use thin cardboard or something, not just regular paper. we also need to make everyone aware, once this gets officially going, that they can't just throw a stamp on an put it in the mailbox if they live overseas from england. you have to actually bring it to the post office to get the proper postage amount. it's still not expensive, but you have to make sure you have it right.