Welcome to the Autumn issue of the Green Theme International on-line Newsletter. The GTI ezine is published to keep current and recent members, enquirers, Newsletter subscribers and journalists informed of developments on the GTI Home Exchange web-site.

My original venture into Home Exchange (with GTI) was back in 1995/96 I had been retired less than 2 years and had lost my dear wife just 4 months into retirement. So travel in general and Home Exchange in particular seemed an ideal way to start a new life,

It was in the spring of 96 that I did my first two exchanges in Canada and that was followed with another four in Australia at the end of 96 and early 97. All of which was an unforgettable experience and made new friends in the process. My subsequent travels much of it on two wheels (see www.arthursmemoirs.co.uk ) then took on another perspective which did not fit in with the Home Exchange.

However I did keep in touch with some of those exchangers and in 2002 I decided to celebrate my 70th year with a cycle ride closer to home with a ride around the coast or England, Wales and Scotland. So I sent an email to friends at home and beyond with an invitation to house sit at my Cottage in the Vale of Glamorgan. One of the replies which came back was from Colin and Sandy who live in Queensland, Australia with whom I had exchanged in 1996, they were planning a trip to Europe and they felt the urge to return to April Cottage.

Although I was on the road by the time Colin & Sandy arrived at April Cottage we kept in touch during and after my 6 weeks birthday ride in 2002.. I was reminded on subsequent correspondence and Christmas cards from Queensland that there was an invitation for me to return to Queensland. My problem was fitting it in to a busy (self inflicted) schedule, that was until I met Dorothy a widow and five years my junior. Dorothy does not ride a cycle but does enjoy long distance walking so a minor change in my lifestyle has now arisen. Having booked ourselves on a Ramblers tour in New Zealand for February this year it seemed an ideal time to accept the invitation from Colin & Sandy, and introduce Dorothy to Home Exchange. So it was pure coincidence that almost 10 years to the day that I returned to a truly Aussie welcome at Noosa Heads with my partner where we spent a very enjoyable and relaxing two weeks prior to our flight to Auckland to meet up with the UK Ramblers.

Having now relocated from the Vale of Glamorgan to another beautiful location in Yorkshire where I can be in the country on foot or on two wheels within 5 minutes, likewise shops and restaurants on my doorstep I felt it was time to get back into Home Exchange.

Arthur Benbow
arbcycle@aol.com HE20037

Recently at Green Theme International Home Exchange, we and our partner agencies have been thoroughly testing a new, upgraded system. You should already be aware of the neater design for the search and listings pages, and hopefully have become familiar with the following changes in the member area:

1. If you have more than one home listed, you will now be able to access all your listings from the same member area, using only the first password you set

2. A new symbol, 'Pets Welcome', has been added to the summary search results. Pets Welcome appears on the membership form as an additional tick box option alongside the current Pet Care Offered and Pet Care Required options. Look for the small dog icon beside summary listings in search results. There may not be a large number of listings displaying this feature until Members realise that it is available. So, if you are a current Green Theme International Home Exchange member and want to add this option to your listing, login and click Edit Listing. Tick the Pets Welcome option (take time to make any other changes needed) and click Save Changes. Listings showing 'Pets Welcome' can also easily be selected by ticking this option on Advanced Search.

3. Once you are logged on to your member area, you will see a reminder that you are logged on on each page you visit, along with a Sign Out link at the top of every page (so you won't need to return to your member area to sign out).

Web-Site Based Contact System: For added security we are now moving completely to a site based contact system, so Members please look out for more changes in your Member Area.

All contact with other members will be done from your member area, with first contact (exchange offer message) made using the contact form at the end of a listing as at present. As well as added security (your email address will NOT be disclosed to the contacting member until you reply to their message, and YOU decide when to share further contact information). Your sent and received messages will also be stored in your member area, with all correspondence with each member stored separately. This will make it easy to keep track of members you have contacted (or who have contacted you) and their responses.

Whenever there is a new message for you (either a reply to a message you sent, or a message from another member), you will receive a brief email to alert you to log on to your member area to read the new message. As some email service providers are more stringent on what they allow through, a few new message alerts may end up in junk folders by mistake and so it is very important to skim through all mail in your junk folder before deleting it. This is tedious but once you are familiar with them the alert messages should soon stand out and be easily highlighted for moving to your inbox. If you are unable to check through your junk folder, be sure to log on to your member area regularly to check for any recent messages you may have overlooked.

One small criticism that has been received about the new look Member Area is that the size of the thumbnail pictures now seem to be smaller than ever, and that you have to click on the picture to enlarge it rather than this occurring automatically when the mouse passes over the thumbnail. Our programmer is aware that we would like to see these pictures larger in size and will be addressing this minor modification very soon.

Adjusting the Font Size of Web-site Text: Some members have reported that the font size on the web-site is larger than before. Whilst we feel that it is an advantage to have the text size on the site of a size that makes it easily readable, if you are experiencing any problems with text size (ie too large, or overlapping characters) you should be able to adjust this to your preferred text size using the View - Text Size - Options in the menu of your browser. A former member, whose husband had sadly passed away, contacted me by telephone recently, saying that she now wished to re-join and hopefully travel to Australia, but as she was only partially sighted, she thought that she might have a problem with reading the listings on the web-site, so the ability and knowledge of how to adjust the text size would obviously be very necessary in such circumstances.

As Athena herself says: "From my personal observations, there is a host of potential home exchangers who continually "window shop", but always hesitate from joining a club at the last minute because they suffer from the "what if" syndrome. Home Exchange Academy goes to great lengths to allay their unfounded fears. Also, a great many of those that have committed to joining a club never make use of that membership fully. They enter some information initially, then seemingly forget all about it. They don't realize there's so much more they could be doing to attract interest and invite inquiries."

Other books published in the past tend to have leaned towards promoting one or other of the major clubs to the exclusion of the competition. Athena's book is impartial and she merely hopes that her book will help other home exchangers make better use of their club memberships.

To give you a taste of what the book contains and how useful it could be to novice home swappers, here is a list of Contents:

Introduction 6

What Is A Home Exchange 8

Who Exchanges Homes 9

Bonus Features 9

My Own Experiences 10

How Home Exchanging Began 11

Selecting Your Home Exchange Club 12

The Major Differences 13

How their members are contacted 13

Paid Memberships or Free 15

Directory Based Clubs 15

Points System / Full Service Clubs 16

How Do You Find A List of These Clubs 17

How On Earth Do You Decide 18

Clubs' Home Pages 18

Membership Fees 19

Clubs' Published Contact Information 19

Listings' Published Start and End Dates 19

Some Clubs' Inflated Membership Figures 20

Hiding Your Contact Information 21

Privacy Policy 21

Listing Demographics 22

Additional Customer Support 22

Guarantees 22

Evaluate Your Selections 23

Test Them! 23

Call their Customer Service 23

Send questions to their email address 24

The Adventure Begins 24

A few tips 24

How should you set up your listing 25

Illustrate your listing with good photographs 27

Children and pets 28

Your location 28

Your own Home Exchange Web Site 29

Contact Between Members 30

Receiving Inquiries and Replies 32

Declining Inquiries 33

Your listed email address 34

Developing likely inquiries 34

References 35

A Written Agreement 36

Car Exchange 36

Sample Car Exchange Agreement 37

Payments 38

Pets 38

Watering Plants 38

Clarification 39

It's A Matter of Trust 39

Perfection rarely happens 40

Sample Home Exchange Agreement 42

The Next Step 46

Preparing Your Home 46

Family Treasures and Irreplaceable Items 47

Your Insurance 47

Pets 48

Your Home Exchange Book 48

Sample Home Exchange Book 50

Warning 60

My Ten Golden Home Exchange Rules 60

General Tips and Advice 61

In Conclusion 65

For anyone contemplating a home swap for the first time, or even if you are an experienced home exchanger, this book has a wealth of information and valuable references. To obtain a copy of the Home Exchange Academy e-book from Green Theme International Home Exchange the cost is just GB£10.00 or Euros 14,50 payable by cheque. GTI Home Exchange members based in the USA may obtain the e-book direct from Athena's Home Exchange Academy web-site for US$19.99 payable by Paypal in US$.

Dear Kath,

We have been delighted with the quality of your website - easy to navigate and covers all eventualities - and we are amazed with the number of approaches we have had from all round the world. We are very pleased to sign up for another year. Kath Calder HE18615

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