Re-Gifting for Charity

This past week was the Christmas edition of the Rocky Mountain Affiliate Marketers Association (RMAMA) meeting at the 1-800-Contacts building. As tradition holds we exchange white elephant gifts. Most are company swag and Doba did not disappoint. I forgot all my blogging t-shirts from BlogWorld but I think I’ll bring them to my company party next week.

Most of the gifts are re-gifts like VHS movies no one has watched for years. The big hit was a Camelbak with a first aide kit, which I opened but was promptly snatched up. Someone got “Web Analytics for Dummies,” which for our group, is a useful gift.

I read what Google’s London office did this year to raise money for charity and for fun. I liked their idea to hold a re-gifting sale where everyone can get rid of unwanted gifts and then help out families in need. This should be a tradition. Plus they all dressed up like superheros (which every geek loves) and ate superhero food (food high in antioxidants like Spinach - or maybe they should’ve served bottles of Xrii). In other words they made it fun. Even more fun than Halloween from the look of the pictures.

So the next time you’re looking for inspiration for your company party, why not combine fun with a good cause? Hold a swag auction. Don’t make people spend money on formals when they could get a superhero costume and wear it more often. I wonder what your dot com parties look like. Anyone else doing something imaginative?

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