I know there unreasonable but £30 is insane!

She may be above you but she is asking you to send an email on her behalf that is not work related. You can send it with her name in and it's too late to do anything about it.

And she is bonkers for thinking people want to spend £30 on colleagues secret santa. I work in Pharma where most of the team are on great salaries and ours is still only £10

I am very PT and have been asked to arrange this, with them saying 'we knew you wouldn't want to join in because you don't celebrate it'

Can I ask you why this person said you wouldn't want to join in? Are you from a non-Christian culture? It sounds like she knows she's excluding you, which doesn't seem fair.

£30 makes it very unfair for anyone on a non-teaching or management salary. As you say, it's half a week's food money for a lot of people and would put some people in a very bad position. I'd go over her head for that and speak to the head.

Gosh we spend a max of £25 on family! No way I would participate.

Blimey. Our whole team earn over £50k each (just using this for reference) and the limit is £5.

YANBU.

I think £15 for secret Santa is a good amount. It's enough to buy more than tat, but not too much. It's like the £10 of the 2010s.

In cases when its work related yes, they cant.

Organising a secret santa isn't work related, its social related - therefore doesn't fall under work activity. So OP can refuse or do as she pleases.

Not RTFT do not sure if this has been suggested or the OP already knows but when typing the email - go into Options and you can set it so replies go straight to the originator of the email.

Miss off the zero and tell everyone it’s a £3 limit.

I've got mixed feelings on this.
I hate Secret Santas - completely pointless in my opinion - but if you are going to do it, it makes some sense to actually buy something decent. I bet a high proportion of the huge numbers of £5 and even £10 Secret Santa gifts that are bought every year go straight into landfill or rattle around in the back of people's office drawers for ages til they finally throw them out.
I caused a bit of a stir a few years ago when I said I no longer wanted to participate in our extended family's Secret Santa. It was precipitated by finding a bag in August which contained everything our family had received the previous Christmas's Secret Santa exchange. Not one of us had wanted or used our Secret Santa gift. When I was open about it, several other family members admitted to feeling the same and we ditched the idea. Between us, we were spending hundreds of pounds each year, mainly on plastic tat or cheap chocolates that nobody actually wanted. The following year we had the same party without the gifts and it was just as enjoyable.
So my vote is to ditch the stupid tradition altogether, but if not, there is some logic in upping the budget so that everyone gets a gift that is actually worth having rather than wasting money on stuff nobody wants. But there should be no compulsion for anyone to participate anyway.

She said 'Sent it out after Halloween! They'll have time to save, won't they?'

My answer to that would have been "I expect many have other priorities"

Whether it's Secret Santa, an expected attendance at someone's Instagram project destination wedding or anything else, I get very tired of these folk who think they'll decide what others spend their money on

Lucky, however, that it's not obligatory

£30 is crazy even without the cost of living at the moment! IME secret Santa is always crap and so wasteful buying colleagues you may not know well something random. Every secret Santa gift l have received has gone straight to a charity shop!

Too much. Whenever I’ve done secret Santa in a work setting it has been low budget and tat rather than proper presents. I have always got my direct reports something but would never expect lower paid staff to be spending money they might not have (on people they might not like!)

Last year we actually did a £0 budget secret Santa and it was really fun. People basically bought in stuff they didn’t want at home- mainly lots of books but it was quite eclectic and played a game with the gifts so there was an element where people could swap, steal etc.

Knock it on the head. No adult needs to receive a Christmas Present.

There seem to be a lot of people who don't seem to understand that admin folk can't just unilaterally override communication instructions because they don't like them.

In your position, OP, and obviously dependent on your relationship with your head, I'd casually say to her/him that I'd been asked to send out the secret Santa information, but I wasn't convinced that the amount was right.

I refuse to take part in Secret Santa, one year we spent Christmas with in-laws, there was about 35 of us, I had four secret Santa’s to buy as my children were too young to go out and get them, I spent a lot of
effort thinking about what type of gift each individual would like, we had a £20 budget.
When I received my gift it was a travel sized bubble bath in crushed packaging which looked old. I was secretly quite hurt especially as my in laws have always been unwelcoming towards me. Never again.

We do £30.00 for very close family members, no way would I do it for work colleagues. £5 is plenty

She can't dictate the exact wording of an email going out in your name OP. Stand up for yourself and tell her you are happy to send the email on her behalf. What can she do if you refuse?

Just say you are not comfortable doing it as £30 is too high, so you'd prefer it us somebody else did it.

A reasonable thing to do would be decide the amount by email with voting buttons - £10 or £30 - let folk decide

If you sent it I would literallly say… ‘crazy lady has asked me to coordinate the secret Santa this year and has provided me with the following details: the budget is set at £30, it will be an anonymous drawing and is opt in, so please let us know by x date if you would like to participate’.
That way everyone knows your not the crazy one!

I don't like the £30 maximum - because some people will take that as 'you have to spend £30' and others will take it as 'I can get away with £2 as that's a maximum' - this leads to 2 people, one of who spends more than they want to and who will inevitably get the £2 gift (might be speaking from bitter experience).

I think £30 is ridiculous. £5 or £10 is fine - and not maximum or there will be someone spending £1 and no, it won't be the person who has no money - they will be spending £10 although they can't afford it - it will the person in the company who has the most money but is a total tight sod.

You might be able to guess that I do not like Secret Santa - I think it promotes unnecessary 'gifting' that ends up with no-one getting anything they want - it's just a waste of money.

Email "Dawn as asked me to email you about the secret Santa this year, she has set a budget at £30, please let me know by x date if you want to take part".

£30 is Madness. The idea of a Secret Santa is a token bit of something and nothing. A daft present, saw this and thought of you, low budget type of thing.

My friends and I have a £10 max. No need to go any higher.

Urgh no that’s far too much for work people silliness - ours is a tenner and tbh that’s a pain in the arse

I hate secret Santa and would rather spend the money on myself knowing I’ll get something I’ll like.

This is social not school work, I'd tell
Her to do it herself