Mumsnet Christmas Appeal/Secret Santa - your thoughts please?

[JustineMumsnet]

Hi all,

It's that time of year again where we are looking towards Christmas and thinking about the annual Mumsnet Secret Santa.

For those of you who've no clue what we're on about, the Mumsnet Christmas Appeal is an annual (obviously) tradition in which MNers nominate other MNers whom they feel to be particularly deserving of support/reward/love to receive a Secret Santa gift. More about it here - and here's how it works plus some FAQs, too.

As we said, it has a long and honourable history on MN - but some have suggested that now we've got Giving Week we should think about retiring the Secret Santa.

So we thought we'd take this opportunity to ask you, before we launch it as usual, if you'd like us to continue with it. We do love helping with the Secret Santa and the thankyou thread is always a very moving read, but it's quite a mammoth thing to organise and there have been a number of complaints about gifts not arriving and/or a lack of thankyou messages which has put a slight dampener on it in recent years.

In short we're happy to stop if folks think it has run its course - and happy to continue if people still think it's worthwhile.

We'd be very grateful for any and all thoughts. Please do post them here.

Surely the instructions could say something like "usually this gift should be of token value" and then it's up to the giver to decide what a token is, or perhaps Sandy could make a judgement call about which recipients need more than a token, to be matched with givers who have asked to give more substantially.

Why not, usual? I was given some information, but needed some clarification so I asked MNHQ. They were happy to oblige. I didn't ask any probing questions like 'are they poor' or something equally insensitive. And - in any case - they can only give you information that's been volunteered by the person who nominated the poster.

It just makes me feel uncomfortable that HQ are discussing people who have been nominated with other posters.

I know you have to give a reason for nominating someone, but you don't have to go into detail about their financial affairs. After all unless you know the poster off board they could be making shit up on here.

It just doesn't sit right with me. I was given a number and an address and basic information I wouldn't have dreamt of probing any further than the information I was given.

If it's going ahead, I think both a financial limit and a ban on 'thankyou' threads would be helpful. From this thread it can easily be seen how the thankyou threads have been the cause of a lot of unhappiness - people seeing that other givers have bought more expensive gifts than them and feeling bad, people looking for a thankyou from their recipient and not seeing one, all the rest of it.

Well, usual, I wanted to make sure that what I was buying was appropriate. What's wrong with that? Why is that wrong? Nobody is gossiping about anybody - the information has been provided by one poster based on what they have read about somebody/know about somebody from what they've posted on the boards. Obviously we all take the risk that somebody is making it up, but I'd rather err on the side of generosity.

I'm glad it's carrying on.

@usualsuspect333

It just makes me feel uncomfortable that HQ are discussing people who have been nominated with other posters.

I know you have to give a reason for nominating someone, but you don't have to go into detail about their financial affairs. After all unless you know the poster off board they could be making shit up on here.

It just doesn't sit right with me. I was given a number and an address and basic information I wouldn't have dreamt of probing any further than the information I was given.

Morning

As BIWI says, we'd never 'discuss' recipients with anyone (donators or otherwise). Recipients can, if they like, tell us a few facts about themselves - from memory this is things like how many children they have, boys or girls, what ages and so on, and when we have that we pass it on to donators. It's absolutely not a case of gossiping over the garden fence about posters' personal situations or financial affairs - that's not something we'd EVER do.

From BIWI's posts it sounds as though we passed on to her the nominator's reasons for nominating the recipient, which is usually something like 'She's had a tough year because [eg her mother has been ill], but I really admire the way she's kept her chin up and she's a lovely presence on on the boards.'

That's fair enough, Rowan. I was given ages of children. I had no idea if the person I was donating to had money worries or was in need though. Which seemed to be what BIWI was saying. I might have got the wrong end of the stick though.

Do you always pass on the reasons? I think if the reasons for nomination are passed on you could possibly work out who that person was?

I don't think I was giving a reason why the person I was donating to was nominated?

Not being arsey here, just curious really.

In the past (not last year) you where given the mums net user name, I know I went on and looked at their posting history and tailored my gifts based on what they'd posted. Last year you where given a new user name so I wasn't sure if my present was appropriate at all, as it happens the recipient loved it.

I'm so pleased its carrying on, I know it must be a ball-ache for MN (or specifically Sandy!) but I just think it gives this place some of its 'heart'

@FruVikingessOla

Yes, you can decline Wips. Either by not responding to the PM/email from MNHQ in the first place - or you can respond, but say that you feel that you don't want anything sent to you.

A handful of folk each year do prefer not to accept their nomination and we completely respect that. It would be really helpful to us if you'd let us know. We feel it's important to check, so giving us a heads up would save us having to send out an email.
Thanks

I've only just seen this thread and I'm glad it's going to continue. I'd like to echo the previous suggestion that perhaps a spending limit be set? I've received (and nominated and donated) in the past and have felt embarrassed as well as touched about the voucher amount I received, when I could only donate half of that.

@GodPlayedByJamesMason

I'm so pleased its carrying on, I know it must be a ball-ache for MN (or specifically Sandy!) but I just think it gives this place some of its 'heart'

We actually were speaking about this in the office yesterday and SandyMN said it's one of her favourite parts of her job. It is a massive task for her, but thankfully she's an organisational demon. She also has special dispensation to wear tinsel in her hair from mid-October onwards, which is a big incentive obvs.

Re information about recipients: the mail we send out to recipients asks them to tell us any extra info (such as children's ages) they think would be useful for their donor to know, and clearly says that any info they choose (and it's entirely up to them) to give us will be passed on to the donor to enable them to give something appropriate.

Our team is extremely aware of potential confidentiality issues and we simply wouldn't pass on extra information without the recipient's permission. But we'll add a line to that email this year to make possible anonymity issues extra-clear.

I was nominated one year, (and was absurdly emotional about it - I'd had a crappy year), and in my reply to MNHQ I stressed that while I was very pleased to receive (and accept) my nomination, that we were very fortunate to not need anything at all, and it was very much the 'thought that counted' in my case.

I would have been happy for MNHQ to pass along those details to whoever it was who sent me my gift, as it was information freely given b me, iyswim.

I do see, of course, that that is not an infallible system, but there is only so much that can be done by MNHQ, and the whole Secret Santa remains in the realm of 'give/take part if you can afford to, but beware of potential for scamming', as it always has.

We've kicked the spending limit idea around a bit, but to be honest we'd rather not - it's not our preference to set lots of rules about things (although we appreciate it may not always seem this way ) and we'd much rather that MNers carry on acting in the spirit of the thing, which is:

a) to be excellent to each other,
b) to create a magic circle of joy-giving, and
c) to know that whatever you give and whatever you get, what counts is that someone out there is thinking about you and/or that you've made someone's day.

We will add a sentence to our gift-giving guidance, though, setting the 'norm' mark at around a tenner (while emphasising that homemade and good quality second-hand are also hugely welcome, and that NOBODY should spend what they can't afford, and that it's really the thought that counts).

We're going to be a bit stricter this year about posts and threads saying 'where's my gift/where's my thank you' - if you report these to us we'll zap them and drop the posters a nice mail asking them to do any necessary chasing off-board via MNHQ. We're also going to try to automate it so that donors and recipients get messaged when gifts are received/despatched - not to replace the 'Thank you' thread but just so people know what's happening.

And we'll add something to the email to recipients asking them very nicely if they could hold off from describing their gifts in great detail (to avoid making donors feel bad if their gifts weren't of equivalent value) - but this probably isn't something we'll police closely, it will just be a suggestion.

Sounds great!

So pleased it's going ahead and it sounds like you've covered as many pitfalls/downsides as possible.

Zombie does happy dance.

Thanks, Rowan. I think that sounds like a good solution. Let's hope it works out this year. I'm very pleased to think that SandyMN is someone who really enjoys doing this, as it is undoubtedly a hugely onerous task!

Can we also, perhaps, ask you to look out for and to zap especially sneery and unpleasant posts about the whole thing? Perhaps you need to introduce some Christmas Talk Guidelines?!

May I please ask what MNHQ decided about people nominating themselves, which many on this thread have expressed some concerns about?

Also can a MNer nominate more than one person?

Thank you.

We're happy to say no self-nominating. (It's only been allowed in really exceptional circumstances in the past!)

Great decision MNHQ

for Sandy ***