I know there unreasonable but £30 is insane!

So is ours!

Why did Dawn say ‘we knew you wouldn't want to join in because you don't celebrate it' when you do celebrate Christmas?

If she hasn’t specified that you should not say that she suggested £30 then just go ahead and write it in the email - she hasn’t said you shouldn’t!

Alternatively if you have to run the email past her before sending then when the questions inevitably come back to you about it just respond “the budget was Dawn’s suggestion which I did query, best to direct any questions to her about the amount”.

Is the assumption you don't celebrate based on your race?!!

Some good ideas I'd go with-

Dawn has ask me to ........

And

Maximum budget is £30 but do spend under if you prefer.

3 things here.

1. If she can tell you not to say that she told you to put £30 budget, you are equally entitled to make sure people know it wasn't your idea. Eg. you can say "I have been told that the budget is £30".
2. If she actually does tell you she doesn't want her name associated with the £30 budget, what does that tell you?! It tells you she knows full well it will be an unpopular decision, in which case why is she insisting on it for something that's supposed to be fun?
3. As someone else has said, she can't tell you not to if you get the email out before she manages to tell you not to.

If she hasn’t specifically told you not to mention her by name I would still go ahead and do it. Either that or say that or if she’s unwilling to put her name to it then you don’t see why you should. Lead by example sort of thing. They’re not going to discipline you for it realistically that would be madness.

This is why setting the limit at a fiver or so is a lot fairer, less room for getting it wrong.

£30 for secret santa is ridiculous. I wouldn't do that.

Much more fun to put a very low cost on secret Santa , makes people think! Make it a silly amount like £4.44. And say receipts ma be asked for.

This puts me in mind slightly of something that happened about 15 years ago, when DD was in her early teens. She joined an online group of fans who were into a particular 'thing' that she was into. There were 11 of them - including her -from all over the world. Only 1 other was in the UK. (The other 9 were in America, Canada, Europe, and Australia.)

They all made an arrangement to send gifts to the other 10 (for Christmas.) Just something small - like around a fiver's worth. Maybe a small piece of jewellery ... Or some kind of Christmas novelty gift.

DD bought 10 gifts costing about £5-7 each, and also made a bunch of friendship bracelets, (or rather I bought it all, as she had no money at 13-14 y.o.) So that was around £60. Plus a tenner for the friendship bracelet kit.

THEN it cost around another £35 for the postage for them all (because - as I said - 9 of them were overseas!) So around £100 altogether, 15 years ago! I was a bit pissed off about it, and said it's too much for people she has never met. She said 'but it's not much, only about £5-7 each!' I couldn't get it through to her that this was multiplied by 10, and then the postage on top was almost as much as the bloody gifts!

Then shocker! she got gifts back from just TWO of the girls. TWO! And they were, a bookmark, and a keyring. One of them was from the other girl in the UK, and the other one was from a girl in France. I was fuming that we had spent all this money, and lots of time carefully selecting the 10 gifts, and making the 10 friendship bracelets, and then wrapping them, and labelling them, and taking them to the post office. We queued for ages and spend around £100 altogether, and she got just 2 out of 10 back! Just a handmade cardboard bookmark, and a 99p keyring!

Never again. She was upset and angry herself, and never sent anything to any of them again. The 8 who sent fuck-all said they 'forgot' or 'didn't have time.' Bollocks. They spent 30 hours a week on the internet!

There's always one. 🙄

That's going from one extreme to the other! There's NO reason to not buy adults Christmas presents! I can only surmise no-one ever buys you anything...?

£30 may well be 70% of a single persons food budget - ludicrous - the point is it's fun daft things - £10 is plenty

I refuse to participate in SS. I replied with an email pointing out we were all employed adults who probably didn't need more stuff.
It fizzled out a couple of years later and now we all chip in for the food bank.

I absolutely hate secret Santa! Especially in a workplace where not everyone knows each other well. It just leads to waste IME. £30 is a ludicrous amount - imagine if you spent time getting someone a nice gift to be given the joke present - it would be so disappointing. It needs to be a low amount - if someone goes above that then that’s their choice but you can’t spend £30 of someone’s money

Anyway, the budget the person asking me to arrange it has set is £30. They want me to send out the email asking people to opt in, and mention it's a £30 budget.

It doesn't say that £30 is the upper limit. It says it's the budget.
Fortunately it's opt in, so hardly anyone will join in.

I would say to Jane that if she doesn't want people to know that it was her decision, then she shouldn't be asking you to send this in your name. If it doesn't need to go out until November, it's not like she hasn't got five minutes between now and then to send it herself.

Does anyone in the world actually enjoy Secret Santa?

If you absolutely don't feel you can say that Dawn has set the budget at £30 - although I'd strongly suggest that you do just that - then there are other ways you can make it clear that it's not on you. 'I've been asked to let you know the budget is £30'.
It's very odd to suggest that you might not want to take part but that you would still be happy to organise it. If they think you don't celebrate Christmas for religious or cultural reasons then surely asking you to facilitate would be equally inappropriate!

£30 for secret Santa is crazy

It is fair - everyone can spend up to the quoted amount. Whether you do or not is entirely your choice, so you can choose to spend the full amount or you can choose to spend the £5 on chocolates - your choice. Just as it would be for a colleague. It is fair because it's a spending limit, not a demand.

Yeah ridiculous! Why do you have to send out the email? Can't she do it herself?
And the cheek of assuming you won't want to be involved!

Just say you won't be sending the email as the budget in your opinion is way too high. Sounds like they want you to get the flack for it.

This is why we do not send a draft to Dawn before we send to everyone. We say, "no problem, Dawn, I'll do that after Halloween, as you suggest," and then we say not another word about it until after Halloween when we hit 'Send to All' including the wording about Dawn's suggested budget.

Good luck!

When you can plainly see it’s spending 50% of a weekly food shop for some people then it’s obvious it’s too much.
Id point that out to the colleague and suggest £10 is more realistic. And if she comes back with the ‘time to save up’ point out they’ll be saving for their own kids presents.

For balance - I’d be quite happy with a £30 budget because I’d be able to get something relatively easy instead of losing two hours researching what is the least shit thing you can get for £5/£10 and I value the time more.

The OP was correcting herself!

IMHO £30 is too dear and £10 is fine. Me and my siblings do secret Santa and our budget is £30!