Hi Lisa,

You definately should post this to the postal LB talk group. I
think people there will give you lots of good advice. As far as
joining a ring, there seems to be a new ring forming every week or
so. most are posted on the PLB talk group. I have one ring that I
started and I belong to 5 other rings. Here is my personal
preference on some of the questions you asked. There is no right or
wrong answer just preference.

When I started my ring I made all the requirements of the ring known
right up from (ex. start date, hand carved stamp, if priority mail
or delivery conf. are required, etc.)

I prefer creating a new, separate Yahoo talk group just for ring
participants. This creates a sense of community and people don't
have to search through the entire postal talk list to find out
what's been going on in the ring. I have never tracked using Atlas
Quest. I belong to a ring that uses AQ to track and I prefer a
separate Yahoo talk list that all ring participants should belong to.

I set the ring start date far enough in advance that everyone should
be able to comply. I remind people periodically that the date is
coming near and confirm that people still are on track to mail on
that date.

I create my own excell spread sheet to track each boxes progress.
If a box is not heard from, I check with people to see why.

I think a good number of people for a ring is 15 - 20. Too few and
you don't get your hard worked on creation to enough people. TO
many and it becomes hard to manage and will take a long time.

I hope this helps. Good luck with your postal ring & your new baby.

Moonstone

PS I do not read this talk list often. If you need to contact me
you can at moonstone_baby at yahoo dot com. I would have replied to
you off list but I do not get individual emails so could not see
your email address.