Way to go UK Street Team!

We just got the latest word from the UK Etsy street team updating us with all the exciting news that is going on with their team! They are not only binding together as team by utilizing the Etsy forums and other online sites like Blogger and Flickr to create design challenges, keep up with each other, organize swaps, and communicate...but they have just recently planned their very first meet up scheduled for this coming August!

(the above photo is an example of one of the entries in the UK Etsy Challenge pool originally uploaded by c-urchin)

Lupin of Lupin.etsy.com writes:

I thought you might like a little update on some of the fun things
we've been up to over in the UK Street Team...

We started a supplies swap group over on Flickr. You can see a big list of some of the crazy supplies we've swapped in just a couple of months here... and you can see some of the awesome things our members have made with their swapped-for supplies here.

We love swapping so much that we organised a secret-santa-esque Secret Swap where everyone who took part made a secret something for someone else and got their own secret surprise in the post around the same time...some of the awesome items swapped (many of them custom-made) can be seen here and here.

We are totally over-excited because our very first official meet-up and crafting retreat has been given the go-ahead. The people of York better watch out in August!
Lots of team members are busy discussing travel plans and activities for the weekend in this forum thread.

And finally (for the moment!) we continue to have awesome design challenges. Every month we have a new theme, any UK Etsy seller can enter via our challenge group on Flickr. and at the end of the month (after midnight on the very last day) we start a voting thread in the "etc" section of the forums that runs for 36 hours to allow everyone to vote no matter what their time-zone! There have been some amazing things created especially for the challenges, and it's great to see so many people taking part.

Last month's theme was "Flowers", all the entries can be seen here. Or on the blog here. This month the theme is "Fairytales", and voting has just begun! You can check out all the great entries in the voting thread here.

A huge thanks to Lupin and the UK Etsy street team for all your hard work and dedication to staying in touch and being an active team! You guys are such a wonderful example of how a team can bind together and make events and challenges happen by communicating not only in person, but over the web!

Is your team taking initiatives to spread the Etsy word? We to hear all about it and share it with the rest of the community, so please email labs@etsy.com with what you and your team are up to!