Hello, hello
As some of you will know, we’re not going to run the Mumsnet Secret Santa this year. It had a brilliant run over more than ten years, with many MNers nominating recipients, and sending and receiving gifts. We know from reading the ‘thank you’ threads over the years that it’s brightened up many an MNer’s festive season. But over the last couple of years it seems to have provoked quite a lot of angst and if there’s one thing none of us needs over Christmas it’s more stress.
To replace it, this year we’re going to promote a couple of very worthy causes close to many of your hearts: Refuge and Women’s Aid, both of which provide life-saving support for women in abusive relationships and their children.
‘Donate’ links will be appearing around the site, and all you have to do is hit on one (or both) of them to be taken directly to the JustGiving page for that charity, where you can make your donation. We at MNHQ will be match funding donations made to both up to a total of £10,000.
We know this is an expensive time of year, but anything at all that you can spare, however small, would be fab - collectively we can make a big difference. This page includes more information from Refuge and Women’s Aid about what how your money will be spent.
We’ll keep you updated with running totals, and there will be some Guest Posts on our Bloggers’ Network to provide a bit more background: we’ll put the links to those up here when they’re published.
Thanks for reading and we look forward to helping these two brilliant organisations give more families a Christmas to remember.
And, of course, a very merry Christmas to you all!
Thanks [santa]
click here to donate to Refuge
click here to donate to Women’s Aid
MNHQ have commented on this thread
Site stuff
Introducing… the Mumsnet Christmas Appeal for Refuge and Women’s Aid
JustineMumsnet · 01/12/2016 15:27
To knickers and slippers. 
And it's not 'daft' at all, Sarnies. 
Sarnie
Refuge have sent us the following on the England/rest of UK question - hope it's helpful.
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"Refuge operates a national network of specialist services in England. These include more than 40 refuges in confidential locations across the country, and community outreach and independent advocacy services (which support women at the highest risk of homicide or serious injury) in towns and cities including London, Coventry and Warrington. Refuge also runs specialist services for Eastern European women, Vietnamese women and Asian women, who may face additional barriers to accessing support; our staff speak more than 40 languages. Together, these services support 4,500 clients experiencing domestic violence – but also all other forms of VAWG, from rape and sexual assault, to ‘honour’ based violence, to FGM – on any given day."
"Refuge’s services operate across England but we are a national charity with a national voice – since 1971, we’ve worked to raise awareness of domestic violence and change social attitudes to women across the UK. It’s also worth saying that women who use our services are often not from the local area – due to the nature of domestic violence, women often cross local authority boundaries, and even countries, in order to flee their perpetrator."
It's a little sad right enough - but Hey. Things change and evolve.
This reply has been deleted
Message deleted by MNHQ. Here's a link to our Talk Guidelines.
Possibly the least appropriate spam ever 
Bumping for those who haven't seen.
I didn't even see what the spam was. (It must have gone fairly quickly 
.)
I have this vision of Mumsnet's financial advisor sitting wincing as they see the donations mount. That thought makes me grin as well.
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