Mumsnet Christmas Appeal/Secret Santa - your thoughts please?

Christmas on MN is reflecting RL Christmas very well, it has turned into a MOANFEST. 'Tis the season to be whining.

Please can you just put all the Christmas related stuff into the Christmas topic, including everything related to the secret santa/ appeal, so that those of us who dont want pages upon pages of criticism and moaning can hide it?

I love the idea of random Christmas cards!

Linerunner

"I think we should stick to the DIY Secret Santa thread, and a Christmas card one, and let MNHQ run a logistically simple appeal by asking for gifts or money to be sent to Women's Aid."

I think this sounds great.

The lovely Christmassy cheerfulness of sending random cards to random lovely people on the internet, without the difficulty and awkwardness of gifts with any material value.

Before anyone goes "Oh but it needn't be significant material value" - well that is always going to be a bit insensitive and Marie-Antoinetty to think you can judge on a forum like this, at what point something becomes of material significance. Really it is very bad form, bad manners, invites awkwardness and upset; and Christmas cards + legitimate charity = Much Much Better.

...and let MNHQ run a logistically simple appeal by asking for gifts or money to be sent to Women's Aid.
I like this idea very much.

I've never really understood how it works. It does seem to involve a huge amount of effort and robust spreadsheet skills.

Dreadful to have complaints of "no thank yous" which seems to me to go completely against the grain of the the whole thing.

I'm pretty anti-giving random gifts to people, yes even at Christmas. Because our lives are very easily cluttered up with unwanted or unneeded items, and I see this as a negative impact on our homes and lives overall. Effectively I think most gifts are a burden to the receiver.

If I do give a gift it will be something specifically wanted or needed or (preferably) consumable. So on that basis, I'm out.

I have to say the whole thing left a bad taste last year with people moaning left right and centre.

I do feel it has evolved totally from the original MN Xmas appeal which was started the year the Xmas club thingie where people save x amount a week and get it at Xmas, went bust. Can't remember what that was called but I think it might have been in Scotland. The appeal was suggested as a way to help MNers who had been victims of that and also other MNers who were in financial difficulties. Originally people sent toys and books and clothes that ther DCs had outgrown as well as new stuff and vouchers. I was overseas so used to offer to send a voucher. MN was smaller then so although it was still a huge undertaking, it wasn't as big as it is now.

So it is a lot different to the original 'Appeal' and I think if it does carry on it needs to be renamed.

I didn't get involved last year but bought from the Refuge Xmas gift list at John Lewis.

Also - a few years ago I sent a gift to someone and from the thank you thread realised that the recipient had received gifts from others too. A testament to the generosity of MNers that there were more donors than recipients that year. It seemed a bit of a shame though as obviously there were loads who hadn't been nominated and could equally have done with receiving. I know that is really hard to sort but I wondered if donors could state whether they are happy to send a gift or, should there be more donors than recipients again, donate whatever they would have been happy to spend on a gift to Women's Aid or Refuge or similar.

And on the Christmas bargain thread, it is plainly stated that if you do go to quidco or whichever site, then yes, sometimes someone gets a referral fee. If you read the threads properly, you'll also see that the regulars on the threads take it in turns to have the chance to get something for the referral thing. No-one forces anyone to click on one of those links.

I nominated 2 posters from the bargain thread. One of whom had recently suffered a bereavement and wanted a special gift for someone to remind them of the person who had died. She had the piss taken out of her by an absolute whingy fuckwit on that thread for daring to ask if anyone could help her source that particular gift. I also nominated the Op of the thread. Because she takes time and effort to help people out.

Which seems just as valid a reason as " I'll nominate my best friend in real life and in the 45 Facebook mumsnet offshoots we both belong to"

I'm not jealous. I just don't think those are good reasons to nominate.

I seem to be in a minority with my opinion, so won't be taking part by either nominating or donating this year.

Anchorute, the OP in the bargain threads does what no bugger else wants to, FoC and others do step in when needed, were you the same person who tried to stir up trouble last year?

Why are you seemingly jealous of others who are popular/prominent/whatever?

anchorute it's really incredibly rude and unfair of you to pick on one poster and say they shouldn't've been nominated.

I'm sure they have had shit things happen in their lives, haven't we all. But those well known, prolific posters complained about seemed only to have been nominated by virtue of their popularity. Some by their own admission were baffled as to why they had been nominated.

I think we should stick to the DIY Secret Santa thread, and a Christmas card one, and let MNHQ run a logistically simple appeal by asking for gifts or money to be sent to Women's Aid.

I'm not sure why you think well known Mumsnetters shouldn't be nominated?

Many of them have shit things happen in their lives.

I've been here for nearly five years, and have never felt inclined to be involved. It feels like it's to do with some mysterious area of MN I'm not part of.

Lots of nominees are irrefutably worthy of their nomination, but others are baffled and embarrassed. And then others are (however briefly) put out not to have been nominated. It's inevitable but that doesn't make it ok.

Giving Week, on the other hand, felt truly like a site-wide thing that everyone could join in with.

Any recognition of those posters who give so generously of their time and expertise, especially in sensitive topics such as Relationships, SN, medical topics, etc, must be a good thing. But the knock-on effects aren't.

I wonder if it would be possible to combine the two - nominate the posters with a great contribution (whether constructive or comic) and then those shortlisted posters nominate charities for MN as a community to support during GW.

I love the Secret Santa, and think it should go ahead, you just need to make it clear that it is very much a Secret Santa for everyone these days and not an appeal. I think that's where people's bugbear lies - it used to be an appeal but these days it's not really, (and making it an appeal for people in need makes it much hard to check). So the rules for participating should be:

1. You are participating in a fun Secret Santa activity
2. If donating, give what you can, don't assume you're giving to someone 'in need' (although of course you might be).
3. I like the idea of a separate thread for people whose gifts haven't arrived so that they can check to say thank you.

I was on that thread, EverythingCounts, and the informal Secret Santa one (maximum a tenner), and I guess that as long as people don't mind swapping addresses by PM it could work really well again. No work for MNHQ in theory.

i think asking MNHQ to receive and store possibly 1000s of wrapped gifts is too much

far better to look up the contact details of your local refuge and arrange for them to receive them

BIWI - I agree, it was disappointing that WA did not seem to raise that much during the Giving Week. I wonder if generally people do actually prefer to send a 'present' rather than a financial donation.

(and yes, I did contribute to the GW ).

PS: Those of you who have Christmas (or birthday cards for that matter) left over can always donate them to food banks as that is something that a lot of people struggle to buy at Christmas and having a small stock at a food bank can make a difference.

a number of people have suggested donations to women's aid or your local refuge as an alternative

i do think for some people there is a desire for the "personal" that comes from nominating and/or sending something directly to a particular person (even if you don't know who that is)

if the MN thing goes ahead this year it just needs to be really clear what the scope is, what MNHQ can handle in terms of admin support and protection of privacy, and what senders/recipients should expect in terms of guarantees (none)

I'd be happy to send a gift to Women's Aid or a food bank. I'm still accumulating a big box of stuff to send off to SSAFA Refuge.

I've now seen Sparkle has mentioned WA earlier. Think the giving presents aspect I suggested though could work well for people who like choosing, buying/making, wrapping etc. Others who don't can give cash instead. It also removes the whole 'getting a thankyou' issue since that just won't be on the cards at all.

One other thing I really enjoyed last year, which required no work from MNHQ, was the 'send a card to another MNer' thread. This was for people who either knew they wouldn't get many/any cards, or who just liked the idea of getting one from another MNer - and for people like me who really like sending cards, or who had three left over and thought it would be nice to use them up. We just swapped addresses by PM. It was really nice, cost very little, no hassle, no-one felt cheated, lots of good feeling.

Funny though, despite being a cause regularly referred to on MN, when it was one of the charities nominated for the Giving Week, donations were not so quickly forthcoming.

I can't exactly remember how I 'knew', magimedi - you are right, it is meant to be anonymous but it was in the early days so perhaps it was a bit less formal than it is now?