Our campaign to create a wave of happiness has continued to grow throughout the Week with more organisations involved and fun and inspirational events and initiatives talking place nationwide.
Millions of items of post have been arriving through letter boxes across the country with our Thinking of You Week stamp cancellation message which also features the industry hashtag #sendacarddeliverasmile.
Big thanks to Royal Mail for this!
PaperCrafter, the top magazine title with a crafting readership of over 65,000, gave the Week a special feature in its August issue, with an interview with the GCA’s Sharon Little and lots of ideas for taking part in the week.
Simply Cards & Papercraft and Papercraft Essentials, with 17,000 Facebook followers each have been running crafting competitions for the Week.
Social media has been all of a Twitter with many independent retailers and putting their weight behind the campaign to spread awareness of the week. The week has seen a huge amount of activity on Instagram as publishers share imagery of their special designs and activities.
Online print on demand operators Thortful sent out a ToYW emailer while Moonpig added ‘Thinking of You’ as a searchable field on its brand new site.
The GCA’s ceo Sharon Little, who has been on the radio to promote the Week, was involved in a card writing event in Offside Books, in Kilburn (see below) as well as setting up a Thinking of You Week display in the newly opened Museum of Happiness in Camden.
“It has just been incredible, every day there is more and more activity, with publishers, suppliers, retailers, schools, media and other bodies all recognising how much joy you can bring by the simple act of sending cards – and with a few days still to go there is still time for others to join in the fun!” said Sharon.
And last but certainly not least, Sarah Hamilton, the founder of the Just a Card campaign (a keynote speaker at the GCA Conference next month) has instigated a parallel event – Just A Card Day – which takes place today (Thursday 28 September), purposefully during Thinking of You Week.
At the Offside Books ToYW event, Sharon brought a selection of cards contributed by Ladder Club publishers and talked about the emotional power of greeting cards.
The participants then shared their feelings about the people to whom they were sending cards and why they were sending them.
Owned by Fatma Kayan, the bookshop has become the heart of the community. “This is just the type of event we love doing,” said Fatma. “We’d love to do more! We’ve recently started stocking cards and they are a great addition to the shop.”
