Welcome to the Pen Pal Sign Up of April 2024.
It’s been a while! We’ve not had one of these for some time so I am bracing myself as I know this is going to be a popular #bringbackpaper activity.
This one is always a labour of love. It’s something I want to do as I know it can make a real difference to so many people, I love the thought of all of those new friendships being formed this way.
It’s a chance to get yourself a pen pal or two. The pen pal sign up is by far the most popular of all of the Bring Back Paper activities that I run, as I think the idea of penning a few letters appeals to so many of you and getting some mail is sure to brighten your day.
If you love the idea, but have never had a pen pal before, or it’s been a while, there are loads of posts here about pen pals and stacks of inspiration over on my YouTube channel.
Read on if you fancy signing up and sending and receiving good old-fashioned snail mail……
How Does The Pen Pal Sign Up Work?
If you’d like to get a pen pal, you just need to send over the details to me that I’m requesting below.
I will sign people up as emails come through, in batches depending on how many I get in a flurry and how well matched you all are. I will reply to your sign up email with details of two people that you can now start writing to, when I have matched you up. There’ll also be another person or two given your details to write to so you’ll probably end up with 3-5 pen pals. (If you only want one or two, feel free to join in, just specify that on your email to me).
This activity takes many hours to organise so bear with me as I really like to take the time to match you up according to your preferences wherever possible. Of course, I can’t control who signs up for it but we do tend to get a good amount of people joining in and the more we have the better the chance of good matches.
I look at whether you have preferences on where you’d like to be mailing to, hobbies and interests in common, similar ages if applicable, and put together the best matches I can for you with the people we have signed up.
I have popped a video up today over on my YouTube channel sharing all about the sign up and how I arrange it if you’d like more information.
It’s been lovely over the years to know that many of you have found friends through these sign ups and continue to write to pen pal matches years later. I never tire of hearing stories like this, it’s wonderful. I’m smiling now just thinking about it!
How Do I Get Involved?
If you would like to get involved and get some new pen pals, then please email me with the following information.
It’s probably easiest to just copy and paste the bold type below onto your email and then you can fill in the details and you won’t forget anything as I do need it all in this same format.
In this format, I need:
Name
Full Address inc. country
Email address
5 Hobbies/Interests/Likes
Whether you’d prefer to post within your own country or internationally
I can’t guarantee this as sometimes you could be the only sign up from your country, but this gives me a good guide as to your preferences. If you absolutely only want to post domestically, no matter the match, just let me know in your email.
Your age
I know some people like to specify, others don’t, but I’ve noticed people often ask to write to people in a certain age bracket. It’d be helpful to supply it, even if you’re happy to write to anyone of any age, just let me know that.
Current Pen Pals/Past Matches
If you have taken part before or have found people within our BBP group or Patreon, please let me know the names of any pen pals you write to. This one’s important as it will help me to avoid signing you up to the same person again. I can’t always re-do the matches as they’ll have been worked out, so it’s best to do this to avoid getting the same names!
Email this over to me at [email protected] by the 21st April 2024 and I’ll pop your details into the mix. The sign up is open worldwide to over 18’s only. I will say that the vast majority of sign ups are women and I will usually sign you up with same gender pen pals unless you let me know on your email that you’re happy to write to anyone.
I’d appreciate it if you could say a little ‘thanks’ and buy me a hot chocolate for this one. I’ve not suggested this before for the activities I’ve run, but this one is quite the endeavour, believe me I’ll definitely earn those drinks! It’s easy to do, just click that link above and all will become clear. There are also a few printables there to grab, just pop to the ‘Extras’ section. If you’d rather say thanks with paper, you can pop to my books and paper wish list. Thank you.
Once you’ve submitted your email to me, keep an eye on your inbox and do make sure I haven’t sneaked into your junk mail as that has been known to happen. It is worth whitelisting my email address to avoid this. You’ll receive an email from me by the end of this month detailing who you can now write to and when I email I always supply you with your new pen pal’s email address, in case of difficulties. I don’t then keep details and records of these, so please do keep your pen pal email safe.
Based on past experience and the activities we’ve been running recently, most sign ups will come from the US, followed by the UK, and then we usually have a handful from Canada, Australia, western Europe and then it starts to be less and less people elsewhere in the world. That said, we’ve not had one of these for a couple of years so I’m excited to see who signs up, maybe we’ll have a completely new demographic! Our last pen pal sign up had nearly 200 people join in and we’ve grown a fair bit since then, so like I say, I’m bracing myself!
And please do feel free to join in if you’ve signed up to this before, there can never be any limits to the number of pen pals you can have. The more happy mail the merrier, right?
We have a range of Pen Pal Fun Packs in store now and Pen Pal Trackers, so do go check out those designs if you need supplies, they’re perfect for your new pen pals.
What do you think? Would you like a pen pal?
You might also enjoy Getting Started with Snail Mail and What to Write to your Pen Pal and do check out my YouTube channel, sharing all things papery!
If you’re new to Bring Back Paper, you can find out more about it all here. You can join our Facebook group here and you can sign up to join my mailing list below, for all the latest news, updates, ideas and activities.