I am not ready for the serendipity since I can’t guarantee I will have any seeds next season. But I’d like to suggest a different rule: Keep the box at the same weight that you received it.
If you can’t do that, ask for a starter pack.
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Keep the box at the same weight in seeds (not in sand or stone 
) that you received it
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What? Can’t we add? 
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I agree with this proposal, and to follow up with @polarca - always add more.
I also want to comment on the idea people maybe have that if they don’t have their own seeds, that they cannot contribute.
For example, last year was my first year of starting the whole landrace project and participating in the serendipity chain. I didn’t have many of my own seeds (like grexes, or landraces), but I did order many seeds online from different resources, exchanged many in my local community, and out of all that I created grexes that I added to the serendipity train together with all of seeds from my garden.
Many people in this group who are loading the serendipity the most invested a lot of money in the beginning to buy all kinds of seeds from all around the world, so we can start thinking about expanding the perspective of having or not having seeds to contribute, because we can always find seeds if we are willing to look around. Maybe not everyone has the same budget or is able to contribute in the same way, and that is perfectly fine… because they might have a lot in 2-3 seasons, but if we have minority who is loading the box, and majority who is taking, diversity is gone very fast.
So, if someone is a beginner in the serendipity train and doesn’t have many own seeds to contribute, (s)he can commit to buy online or exchange seeds of let’s say rhubarb and create a master grex that will be for that person and put one part for the serendipity… or beans, or corn, or kale or anything else. It is one of the ways… and there are so many different ways to get seeds to contribute to the diversity of the box.
I was not waiting for the serendipity train only in my first year to create grexes, but everywhere around and loaded all that diversity also in the serendipity, and I got a little bit of very diverse genetics from the box for the most interesting crops for me.
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Yes, I am growing many of your TPS that I got last year from serendipity because then it was too late to catch up with sowing them, and they are growing very nicely for now… quite fast germination during cold period.
Additionally, I see that there are more people who are joining the Serendipity train. So we can decide what to do at this point.
Do several people send some seeds to me to put in the box to add more to the diversity of the box and then send it to the people waiting in the line? And we can put the box on a short pause until I receive more seeds of those of you who have abundance to share?
Or I can also send some small shipments to those waiting who are eager to start already this season with some grexes from the box and my seeds?
Maybe everyone who is in the line next can express what they would like?
Or we wait with passing on the box until autumn when we will have more of fresh seeds to add?
I am ok with all of the mentioned options 
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My personal preference would be to
- receive small shipments of seeds to start this season already (check. Thank you all!
) - and wait with passing on the box until autumn, with replenished seeds.
But it’s easy for me to say now.
Also, it’s a little bit unclear to me at the moment where to send the seeds I harvest later this year, to contribute? To you, Marcela?
I’d love to grow potatoes from TPS next year, very much looking forward to that! (Letting my taters go to seed this season: Bintje & Désirée).
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The Serendipity seed train is in revision. It is/was a box travelling through Europe. Members took stuff and added stuff. There was balance. Now it has crashed.
We’re thinking of making a two tier system. Only known members or people who are newto this club and amazing breeders of sorts with a lot of diversity and stuff can have it. Not new people we do not know. But that’s just me putting it bluntly.
How this is going to work out we’re still discussing, but some people are not active now, but will be so after planting season…Also there is the big meeting in November in Croatia where things will be discussed further. As well we’re talking on zoom calls about stuff like this. Open to everybody. Come and meet us Nina.
Because this feels unlike how we are, this “evil and elitist two tier” system we decided to make Starter Kits.
So that new members can have seeds that some members have in excess. They are great grexes, people would spend years and hundreds of euros to gather these. But we give them for postage to new members. this is also still in development.
It is tied in to the new Telegram group. An open group, everybody interested can become a member and can apply for Starter Kit seeds there.
There is also a personal exchange topic in Europe. People present what they have and for how long.
Where and to who you want to send your seeds at the end of the season is up to you. There are no musts. You can keep them all to yourself as well. Or share them with neighbors. Or do personal exchange with members. Or donate them to Starter Kit. Or give them all to Marcela. I’m sure Marcela would love the last option best. But others not so, i’m afraid. 
So again, to be clear, the above is just my personal view of how we can keep everybody extremely happy and well served on their own level of breeding. So far nobody said that it is terribly unfair to new members.
But people can share what they think here.
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I think it would be important in the rules of the game and for easier remote tracking to:
- take a picture of the package on arrival (see if the postal service of a country has problems in transportation)
- take a picture of the unpacked package (see if the previous person did not put too much mess)
- take a picture of what is taken (know the exits)
- take a picture of what is added (know the new ones)
- transmit the weight of the postal weighing at the start on the assumption that it must not exceed 3 kg
- remove seeds that have traveled more than a year (high probability seeds are dead given the extreme storage conditions)
- can be given access to the beginner a little less quickly (show that you are engaged in the community and already know a little gardening, it is domage to start gardening with seeds so valuable)
I also feel that we must stay on a discreet package (no Serendipity chain inscription or luxury product box that could attract outside looters which is common in delivery services because I have experience between france and spain as soon as we send cheeses in the boxes of the dairy it there is strong evaporation during transport 
)
In my opinion, I think it is more interesting not to mix everything in the same bag. If I want only the beans of a person or seeds from a particular geographical location I can find them.
Another idea that I found interesting was to divide the box into two packages (2 x 1.5 kg) which circulate simultaneously to avoid waiting times too long, losses, reduce transport costs.
It would seem really interesting at this stage to follow up with a 3rd virtual train in the form of an excel spreadsheet accessible online and completed by everyone. We could store the information of dates, quantities, but above all use it as a catalogue of the stock available from our Serendipity Box.
We see live what is circulating and ask or not the box. This file will also serve to simplify peer to peer exchanges. If only one variety interests me in the box then I make the decision to make a direct exchange with the person rather than sending a whole carton. It will also prevent us all from buying the same things from seed dealers 
.
I also think that beginners can get it, if they follow the rules. They can if they do not have their own seeds yet make some purchases of seeds that lack in diversity box for create a new grex as Marcela suggest (many of us have started like this), exchange with their neighbor gardener or really if they have no other source of seed possible keep the seeds of their local vegetables that they buy for consumption (tomatoes, peppers, garlic…).
We could relaunch the experiment this fall and put off a few months to replenish stocks. 
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Take a picture? We’re going to police each other now?
What exactly is there against a two tier system?
I didn’t think that this would be understood as a monitoring action but rather as a simple way of remote tracking of the stock (quantity, ranking to be done…).
Anyway you do not have your French papers Hugo, in addition you grow seeds not pure…from the beginning I do not understand how you had access to this box !
personally I have nothing against a two-speed system…everything is possible I just give my thought to try to move the community forward 
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Come on that is policing, taking pictures of what is coming in and going out. That was never necessary before it became such a succes.
I am saying we can surpass problems by going to a two tier system. People who have seeds and/or diversity can join the seed train.
The new people in GTS/ adaptation gardening can get what the people who have seeds want to share, that is being put in Starter Kits. They can then prove to be great contributors and get the seed train a year later.
“Hop on friend! Welcome to candystore of seed walhalla train, you’ve earned it.”
That way we give everybody a fair chance and evolved proven members who invested time , energy and money don’t have to jump through any more hoops.
Please let’s keep things simple, fair and understandable.
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As a total noobie member, I’ll just comment how I feel about all this:
- I think the StarterKit is a great idea
- I find the Serendipity Seed Train a great, fantastic, wonderful invention and would love to join…and/but at the same time I feel the seeds in that train might be “too prescious” for a beginner.
- So howsabout: 1st year member: StarterKit access, and if one feels good and confident about the aquired skills and has and wants to contribute with produced seeds, one can hop on the SeedTrain after the first year?
I’m feeling a bit squeamish about recording every step with photos. If, let’s say, I’d get the SeedTrain package and it was damaged/otherwise shocking, I’d take a photo and report it in the group. But not as a standard procedure. I did like the idea of ‘the tourist picture of the SeedTrain package’ in it’s current surroundings though. But not necessarily to record the contents.
I also like Stephane’s virtual, excel sheet train idea, so that if someone absolutely NEEDS certain kind of seeds (like “NOW!”) they could check the virtual train before committing to buying. Personally I prefer a seed swap to paying postage, but I get it, some people are swimming in seeds already and don’t need extra.
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Why not a GPS tracker and a inside security camera in the box, with a wifi connection at interpol police ?
yes the seed train is a great invention, we have to make photos may be less systematic but it is also important to document. I find this story even funnier than its contents… I would love in a few years to be able to release together a little book where this box will tell us all his anecdotes…his journey to meet everyone, from our lands…and the cooperative spirit of the community.
This would be the best possible document to show the power of seeds without borders and with the differences of each. 
Yes the idea of 2 speeds with access after a certain time is good because in the past some are served in and then disappeared just as quickly from the community. But one year which doesn’t correspond to anything (we can sign up and read the GTS courses, the forum without participating for several months as I did at the beginning without really being part of the community). Perhaps the conditions for access to the train could be:
- introduce yourself
- have participated in some exchanges
- have sent some seeds in return for the starter kit.
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At this point I am a little bit overwhelmed with the seeds operations 
and planting at the same time all kinds of things. I think I reached my maximum capacity to exchange seeds hahahha I will still send some small shipments until the end of the week to people who expressed the desire to receive some diverse seeds from the the serendipity box.
I would suggest you keep it for autumn and then we will see how we will manage the new round of serendipity and starter packs, and who will receive seeds and send them forward.
I am hoping to get some TPS this season as well.
I love all of the other comments with some humor in them. I am sure we are going to develop a very nice network, and whoever wants to join our live meeting in November, let us know
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My blunt opinion, then…. If Hugo can have one then so can I 
It’s more important to spread diversity that maybe once in a century the pack “crashes”. This is the first time we experience that the pack has gotten flat or thin or light or IDK. Why impose more control, more checkpoints, incoming/outgoing photos instead of trusting that this was a one-time event, unlikely to repeat in the near future.
I’d just continue largely as we’ve done so far rather than impose new rules on anything. I’d even explicitly allow new members to “rape” the package — as long as we set the route up so that after each event of “rape” there’s some refill from established members sitting on huge seed stocks. Heck, I have SAID to Roosa for example to go ahead and “rape” the package.
As to what to do w the package right now, I don’t have the silver bullet. I could send now large amounts of legumes and possibly TPS to Marcela — the problem is I really really don’t have the finances for this now. I’m poor at the moment and can’t afford it; else I’d have stuffed that package right now with what I can.
PS. I am 101% sure that, despite my explicit instruction to rape the package, she did not. No one complained after Roosa, the opposite, the package was praised.
PPS. I’d still like to see the depleted package. Maybe it’s all down to perception what we think a good package is? I think that even if you strip all legumes and all corn from that pack, even then it had tremendous diversity. Can’t imagine all of it just vanished? Can the box have been opened, damaged on the way? Can contents have vanished altogether (fallen out, lost? To me the pack arrived in such a shape that it’s a miracle anything arrived at all. I remember I was VERY angry. It was an oversized box in comparison to the contents, badly taped.
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I have 103% confidence in the community including newcomers…
however I have -28% confidence with the experience to the postal and logistic services that handle this box .
With the development of online commerce and deliveries in all directions, there are beginning to be many pirates attacking freight trains here.
We need to find solutions to improve the security of transit between members and especially have control over weight management that can lead as you point out financial problems for sending by some members.
I think you would be as much angry currently if you received a damaged, opened and looted package, than a package with no diversity in it, or with a weight of 8kg that would ruin your possibility to contribute financially to the next shipment.
Then more rules or more anarchy in our seeds? certainly a story of balance 
Personally it isn’t the stories of package that make me angry, but I would like so much to see a possibility that this continues (although I have not yet participated in the serendipity seed swap) in an external world always more capitalist who sometimes happen to annihilate the good souls and good initiatives of this world.
Otherwise there is a radical solution:
do a “live serendipity seed swap” every year in our annual event…we come the suitcases of seeds for a live orgy! we stop polluting the planet with package deliveries…
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Hi Cathy, I am a bit overwhelmed with work and life at the moment so I don’t have the time to take photo of everything, although I wanted to. I put priority to send out seeds to people who still want to receive it and have enough time to sow it this season so that in autumn we can have more people in the community with more diversity. That was one of the reasons for my proposal to pause serendipity and send smaller packages to people in the line
Here is a photo of beans section that I have taken while going through the package first time, and also corn. I didn’t take any corn, I did take some of the beans, but still didn’t add anything until we see how we go next.
I asked people who are waiting in the line for the serendipity box to see what their priorities are to see how much they could benefit from actually waiting for the box to arrive to them, maybe soon, maybe later in June. I was thinking in the direction of what would be more beneficial for individuals and community and it seemed like something reasonable.
If they are looking for cucurbits, it would be useful for them to get the whole box, but for other categories I don’t know It is quite unbalanced that the box is 4-5 kilos and ends up less than 2 kilos of bags and seeds together after several weeks of traveling. I see it as something to think about in the future, to have in mind of what kind of values we want to promote while inviting people to join the serendipity.
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Reading the posts here above I’m thinking it could be a good idea to ask for “as much diversity as possible” and to “maintain the weight of X kg/g” for the box.
Also, as a noob, I have no clue but want to ask: is the route for the Serendipity Seed Swap Train ‘optimalised’, so that the postage costs stay as low as possible? I think many of us are struggling financially at the moment… On the other hand, such a treasure train package is a bargain compared to ordering seeds from seed selling companies + the vitality and diversity (and community!).
Cathy summed up what I wanted to say and feel about this.
If the package really did lose most of its volume and diversity, then it is the first time it happened. It’s possible we can continue pretty much as we’ve done before with a few adjustments and be exactly as happy and enthusiastic as we’ve been. To make adjustment, we need to learn what happened. Hence, why I invited the previous members in the line to tell us how their experience with the serendipity train was. We haven’t heard from @shao and @mare.silba. Can you tell us what you think might have happened? We’re trying to learn so we can improve this project together.
For @hugo and @stephane_rave, I want to note that each of your proposals build on assumptions about what happened that might or might not be true. For Hugo, your assumption is that newcomers to the projects have taken much more than they’ve added, thus depleting the box. Hence the starter-pack project. I think the starter-pack project is a great idea for a lot of other reasons than this, and I want to support it. I think it merits its own thread to discuss it further too. Will you start one @Hugo ? Then we can start branching this thread to keep it on topic (the topic here is the serendipity seed swap).
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Hello, hello! Thanks Marcela for starting this conversation! I would have loved to go through the box and be part of this experience. But at this point I think I have enough material to start (thanks to our previous exchange, starter packs from Hugo and Thomas, and my most recent exchange with Tanja). And for me personally the most enjoyable thing would have been to go through the box and discover unexpected stuff and also perennials. But for the things that have a priority in my garden right now I am good enough to go, or in some cases it’s already too late in the season. That said, I think it’s a good idea to freeze and you don’t need to send me extra seeds. I’d rather wait for the next round or the meeting in Croatia!
some comments on what has been discussed:
- I like the idea to encourage newcomers to contribute seeds the have bought or received at seed swaps.
- I think it’s nice to have pictures of the box and of the new seeds, this way we understand better what’s in there and what needs to be re-stocked
- some staple crops could also be re-stocked along the way - for example, if I see that there’s crucial amounts of seeds missing in some of the envelopes/bag of everyone’s favorites, I could reach out to the group and ppl that have a lot could send more if they can.
- Everyone who currently has the package needs to make a little survey, assess the situation and communicate if action is needed (just as many have done before). (although keeping excel sheets seems too tedious to my taste)
- my thought about the starter kits, is that it will most probably always be the same ppl bearing the costs and the work, with the seed train the costs and work of giving access to diversity is shared more equally I feel like. It should be clear however, that also newcomers need to contribute. And if we have doubts on how to contribute we can always ask!
- having 2 boxes circulating sounds great, but is it possible to manage?
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