Handling Showers

All the shower orders are sent to Joy and Pat. When it's your week to handle showers, one of them will email a copy of any showers that have been ordered during that week. There is no set amount of showers you'll be handling during week. Some weeks are pretty light, and others are crazy busy.

So, now you've been sent a copy of your first shower order, and you're wondering just how to get it posted in "SAJ Leaders Forum"  and "The Grammar Garden's Gardeners" .

On "SAJ Leaders Forum"  you'll need to scroll down the page to find your name among the other shower handlers and their current showers. Once you find that and have some idea of where your placed on the list, you'll want to go to the top right corner, click on Item Tools, and choose to edit it. Leave the original open so you can use it to double check the shower items along with the shower order.

If there isn't a starting date beside your name, you'll need to add it. Often a member is gifted more than one shower, so the leader needs to know the right person to contact when the reviews are complete.

Next you will want to look at the shower order to see who is receiving the shower, and who it's from. On the first line of the shower you're setting up, you'll need to type in the recipient's name, the type of shower, how many reviews are included in the shower, and the member gifting the shower. You can also list any message that might have been included for the recipient. You'll find that at the bottom of the shower order. It's easier to add this information if you scroll down to the reply section of the email because it will already have the writingML included, so all you need to do is some copy and pasting.

Once you have that finished, go back to "SAJ Leaders Forum"  and find the drop-down link titled Budget and Items for Shower Packages. Here you'll find a complete list of what each shower contains. You find the shower that corresponds to your order, and list it under the basic information you've added about the recipient.

Some orders will include special items that have been ordered to go with it, so you'll need to make a note of those things once you have the basic list of gifts added. Be sure to put a date out beside each gift after you've sent it. This is very helpful so that you won't forget later on, and if you have to be gone, whoever steps in to help you will know what is needed.

Once you finish that, click save and view to make sure everything is okay. If it looks correct, you'll then need to scroll down to the various cnote shops and order the beginning cnote to send the recipient. There are two shops for the beginning cnotes for you to choose from, and once you pick one to use, you'll find a variety of cnotes available. You'll pick one of these based on the title of the shower.

You'll fill out the information and include the message you were given. If there wasn't a message, and it wasn't bought as a secret gift, just let them know that they have been gifted the shower by whoever purchased it. Feel free to add a little something to it such as a congratulations, wishes for helpful and encouraging showers, etc. We're a happy and encouraging group, so try to send them a little happy message if you can.

Once the cnote has been sent, post the date beside that item on your list and then save and view once more to make sure it's correct. Once you see it's fine, go to "The Grammar Garden's Gardeners"  to post it with the other showers. By now you should know how to edit the page, so I'll not bore you by going through it again.

You'll go down the page until you reach the last shower on the list, and you'll add your new shower just below it. The first line you add will be the date you're posting it, the second line will be who it's for and the number of reviews in the shower, and below that you'll add a zero in parentheses. This indicates that the recipient has not yet received any reviews.

The name and number of reviews should be colored red, and to the right of that, you'll include a hidden remark that the handler is you. The "Hide" code is in the menu bar. It's the one that looks like a ghost letter on a white background. If you do it manually, it looks like this {hide} Handler's name {/hide} Once you finish that, save and view to make sure it's all correct. If it looks like the other ones on the list, you've successfully set up your first shower. Congratulations!

Now, as the shower progresses, you'll want to try to figure out how to send the gifts. We don't want to send all of the gifts at the same time, so you'll need to find a system on how often to send a gift.

The trick I like to use is to find a certain number of finished reviews that I'll use as a type of guide for that. If the shower includes 10 reviews, and 4 gifts, I'll try to send out a gift after 3 reviews have been given, again after another 2-3 have been given, and so on depending on how long the shower is taking to get finished. We want to try to spread these out as much as we can, but some showers last longer than others, so it's very helpful if you check "The Grammar Garden's Gardeners"  once in a while to see how it's progressing.

With Merit Badges and Awardicons, feel free to add an appropriate message and associate the Awardicon to "Invalid Item" . With raffle tickets and gift certificates, you can just add a simple message stating that it's part of their shower from "Invalid Item" .To make it a little easier, "Invalid Item"  has an item alias that you can use instead of the item number. If you type in {item:saj}, it will produce "Invalid Item" . At the very bottom of "SAJ Leaders Forum"  you'll find a list of raffles and image shops to use for those items. If you happen to receive a shower order for a member without an upgraded account, you'll need to substitute any gift certificate to an image shop with something of the same value since they can't use images. Extra raffle tickets or a cNote with the amount of GPs included should be fine. BE SURE TO ALWAYS LET THE RECIPIENT KNOW THAT THE GIFT IS PART OF THEIR SHOWER FROM {item:saj}!

If you find all of this a bit confusing, there are several examples by other leaders that you can look at to see how it's all done. If you still have questions, feel free to ask me, Pat, Joy, or Lornda.

It will get a lot easier as you continue to do it, so don't get discouraged if you have a bit of a problem getting it all figured out with the first one. You'll even develope your own shortcuts and special way of doing it so that it's easier for you.

I'm sure I left something out, but this is the general information for handling showers. I hope you enjoy this little task, and don't forget to call on us if you need something explained, or if something comes up that you won't be able to handle your turn or need to be offline for a while. Remember that this still needs to be taken care of even if you can't do it, so we need to be notified as soon as possible so we can make sure they're completed on time.

Just send an email to warriormom along with a cc to ~A.J. Lyle~ , Lornda~ House of Martell ~ , and Missy ~ EnjoyingBeingAMommy whenever you need our help. That will ensure that at least one of us will get the message and come to the rescue.

Just a few notes:

When you send out the cnotes, be sure to choose "Invalid Item"  to pay for them.

All other gifts that you send will be paid for from your GPs, and you'll need to reimburse yourself from group funds. You can choose to reimburse yourself after you purchase each gift, or you can keep a total of the amount you spend on each shower and reimburse yourself after you complete a shower.

To reimburse yourself, you'll go to "Invalid Item"  and in the group item section, you will choose to reimburse a group member. Once there, you'll type your user name in the top section, the amount of GPs in the second section, and a note about what it was for. When you confirm it, make sure all of the information is correct before you send it.