The Journal · The Brantford Club

What to Write in a Retirement Card: 42 Messages and the Rules Behind Them

In a retirement card, write one specific thing the person did, thank them for it, and wish them something particular for the time they now have. Two to four sentences is enough. Sign with your first name, and on a shared card add a word about how you knew them.

A retirement card is a short written message given to someone on or near their last day of work, and kept long after the cake is gone. At The Brantford Club, where the house has set its tables since 1898, the card usually comes out at the end of the dinner and goes hand to hand around a table at 98 George Street before the retiree reads it in front of everyone who signed. A line that passes in an envelope opened alone can sound thin read aloud. The messages below were written for this guide, grouped by who is retiring.

What do you write in a retirement card?

A retirement card message has four working parts, and a good one fits them into fifty words. Open with the person’s name and something specific: the year they started, the client they kept, the habit everyone knew them by. Thank them for something concrete. Wish them something that fits the life they are walking into. Then sign. The specific detail does most of the work. “Thanks for everything” is true of everyone; “Thanks for covering my Fridays the year my father was ill” is true of one person, and that person will read it twice. On a group card with forty signatures, one or two lines is right.

Retirement messages for a coworker

A coworker retirement message should name the work you shared, since that is what you know about each other. Keep it short; the coworker will read thirty of these in a row. Swap in the real details.

• Twenty-two years and you never let a deadline slide past without warning the rest of us. Thank you, and enjoy mornings that start when you decide.
• I learned the filing system from you in my first week and I still do it your way. The office will be quieter without you, and less organized.
• Thank you for every coffee you made when it was not your turn. I hope the garden gets all the attention we used to.
• You knew where everything was, including the reasons. We will be asking “what would Linda do” for years.
• Thank you for training half this floor, me included. I hope retirement is as patient with you as you were with us.
• You made the hard weeks easier and the good ones better. Send photos of the cottage.

Retirement message for a boss

A retirement message for a boss works when it thanks them for one decision or habit, said plainly. A specific thank-you stands apart from a card full of general praise.

• Thank you for hiring me when my resume had more gaps than experience. I hope I have repaid the bet.
• You always told us the reason behind a decision, even when you did not have to. That made us better at our jobs.
• I will remember how you handled the year the plant flooded: calm, clear and first in every morning.
• Thank you for backing me in rooms I was not in. I found out later, and I have not forgotten it. All the best to you and Janet.
• I hope retirement gives you the long holidays you kept postponing for us.

For a close colleague or a work friend

A close colleague’s card can carry more history, because the friendship will outlast the job. Mention a shared story and make a plan to see them.

• Fourteen years of lunches at the same table. Retirement only moves them to Tuesdays.
• You were the first person who made me laugh after Dad died. I will never forget it. Happy retirement, friend.
• I am not sure who will roll their eyes with me in meetings now. Keep the first Friday of every month for me.
• Every good story from this place has you in it. Go and make new ones, and tell me all of them over dinner.
• You talked me out of quitting twice and into the promotion once. I owe you at least one very long lunch.

For an employee who worked for you

A manager or owner writing to a retiring employee is thanking them for the business as well as personally. Name the years and the contribution, and say what stays because of them.

• Thirty-one years, two owners and one very old forklift. Thank you for keeping this place running through all of it.
• Our customers asked for you by name, and that is the best thing anyone can say of a person in this trade. Thank you.
• The way you trained new staff is now simply how we do things here. That stays long after this card is put away.
• Every year-end you stayed late and never asked for a word of thanks. Here it is, in writing.
• Your door is always open here, and so is the coffee pot.

Retirement wishes for a friend

Retirement wishes for a friend can skip the work and speak to the life ahead: the trip, the boat, the grandchildren, the book they keep promising to write.

• No more alarm clocks and no more excuses for missing golf. See you on the first tee.
• You have talked about Newfoundland for twenty years. Book it this week, and send a postcard.
• Now you can finally learn to cook properly, and I volunteer to taste everything.
• You worked hard for a long time and you deserve every slow morning ahead.
• Here is to long lunches on weekdays, because now you can. I will bring the wine.

For a parent, a partner or a family member

A family card is the one place where length is welcome. A parent who worked forty years for the household is moved most by a few sentences about what that work made possible. Write what you saw from the kitchen table.

• Dad, you left for the plant at six every morning for thirty-eight years so that we never had to worry. We noticed. Thank you.
• Mom, you taught a whole school of children to read, and three of us at home as well. Every quiet morning is yours now.
• To my husband, who finally gets to sleep past five: I am so glad to have you home, and I have a list.
• Grandpa, you worked longer than I have been alive. I hope retirement is full of fishing and beating me at cribbage.
• Aunt Carol, your nursing made other families’ worst days a little easier. Now it is your turn to be looked after.

Short lines for a group card, and how to sign one

A group retirement card works when each person adds one personal line and signs so the retiree knows who they are. If you did not know the person well, a sincere one-liner beats an invented memory.

• Thank you for the help on the Henderson file. Happy retirement. Priya, Accounts
• You made my first week a lot less frightening. Tom (the new guy, 2019)
• We met only on the Thursday calls, and you made them better. Marc, Ottawa office
• Thank you for always saying good morning, even on the bad ones. Ana
• Wishing you good health and long holidays. From all of us on the third floor

Funny or formal: choosing the register

Funny retirement messages work between people who already joke together, and only about the job, never age, health or money. Formal suits a senior colleague you knew by reputation, a client or a board member. When in doubt, write warmly and plainly.

• Congratulations on escaping. Please leave the stapler; we have grown attached.
• The printer has asked me to say it will miss you most of all.
• Your last day, and you still beat me to the good parking spot.
• Thirty years of “reply all” and you finally get to log off.
• On behalf of the board, thank you for your years of service and your care for this organization. We wish you every happiness in your retirement.
• With gratitude for your many contributions, and every good wish for the years ahead.

What not to write in a retirement card

Most retirement card mistakes come from treating the card as a joke about getting old. Leave out age jokes, pensions and money, health unless the retiree has raised it, the word “finally,” work handovers and who is replacing them, and unattributed quotes. “Enjoy your next chapter” on its own sounds like it came printed on the card.

Ontario readers have one more reason to keep it kind. Since December 12, 2006, the Ontario Human Rights Code has protected workers aged 65 and over from age discrimination in employment; before that date, policies requiring retirement at 65 could not be challenged under the Code, according to the Ontario Human Rights Commission. A retirement in Ontario is now usually the retiree’s own decision, so write the card as congratulations on a choice.

Where the retirement card came from

The retirement card belongs to the history of the printed greeting card. The first Christmas card is generally attributed to Sir Henry Cole and the artist J. C. Horsley, who printed a holiday scene in 1843 for Cole to sign and send to friends, according to the National Park Service. Louis Prang, a Boston lithographer, began printing Christmas cards for export to England in 1873 and released what is generally regarded as the first commercially produced American Christmas card the next year. Retirement cards came later, out of the same printing trade. The group card draws on an older habit, the register: a page of signatures meant to be kept. The Brantford Club’s Visitors’ Register carries Winston Churchill’s signature, dated January 3, 1901, per the Club’s centennial history, and the house’s own record of its first years sets out the rest.

Retirement card messages, summed up by relationship

Reading the card at the retirement dinner

Most retirement cards are opened at a party or a dinner, so write with the room in mind. At The Brantford Club, the Large Dining Room upstairs seats sixteen at one table, and the card usually goes over with the gift once the speeches are done. The evening a retirement dinner follows in a private room is set out hour by hour in the Journal. The speeches have their own advice on standing up and saying it; keep the best story for the speech and one line of it for the card. On the night, the organizer collects the card before dinner so nobody signs it under the table during the toast, reads it once for anything that would embarrass the retiree in front of family, and hands it to whoever presents the gift. Eric Wasylenky’s kitchen and the rooms on the Club’s private dining page look after the rest.

Retirement card questions people ask

Sources: the Ontario Human Rights Commission, The end of mandatory retirement (fact sheet), read October 2026; the National Park Service, Louis Prang Longfellow Christmas Card, read October 2026; the Club’s centennial history (privately printed, ca. 1998) for the Visitors’ Register; the Club’s hosting sheet (September 2026) for the Large Dining Room. Every message on this page was written for it.