I have encouraged a real group approach to the birthdays - before I organised it we used to all put in £7 each year to pay for a card and a cake each.

I love making cards and see it as a challenge to keep producing themed cards, which are generally kept out on desks for ages.  I don't mind the cost of these since I have a good stash of papercrafting stuff and I have fun playing!

The really nice touch though is we now rarely buy cakes - we take it in turns to bake - two reasons; easier to cater for specialist diets and they just taste better!

If you have a few people that homebake that could start it off? it soon becomes very competitive and you get people volunteering to bake their favourite.

In fact we have a birthday this coming week but I will bake for this - it needs to link to the card theme ... (daren't say just in case any of my secretarial colleagues outwith my group spot it and spill the beans!)

Cathy