give it

Charity wedding lists - have we reached a positive tipping point?

We always come up against plenty of (traditional) wedding list competition whenever we're at The National Wedding Show, four big shows each year, two in the Autumn (London Earls Court and Birmingham NEC) and two in the Spring (London Olympia and Birmingham NEC). These are the biggest shows of the year and we've just got to be there.

But at this Spring's London show (where, continuing the growth in vistors noted in the Autumn shows, there were 8% more people attending) we faced less competition from the traditional wedding list providers than ever. Over the years we've been up against major High Street stores like Argos and Next, who weren't there this time, along with a plethora of online 'here today and gone tomorrow' services (I checked back and counted over half a dozen from the last couple of years, often appearing at a major show just the once) - none of these dubious options were there at Olympia this time either. Even John Lewis didn't bother going!

So who was there? Well there were seven different options;

• Two 'traditional' options (Debenhams and House of Fraser)
• One excellent fairtrade option - fairgift (I think this is a really great complementary option to one of our wedding lists)
• Three individual charity options - Oxfam, Cancer Research UK (both have been coming to some of the big shows for a while now) and NSPCC
• One multi-charity option - ourselves, Give It 

So what's happening?

It can't be because the shows are of less value - numbers are increasing and where else can you get to speak to thousands of potential customers and get real face-to-face interaction? Yes, there's a recession, but organisations that are well-run and that are focused on the service they're providing to their customers (and, in our case, our benefiting charities) are the ones that continue to market their products and services well (and efficiently), and continue to meet their potential customers in the best places available - once you start giving up on The National Wedding Shows you're giving up on hoping to be a key player in the national (or at least the English) wedding market (and no, I'm not hoping for a discount on our stand at the next show, although it would be useful!). There are other shows but I can't believe any give you the efficiency that these provide (effort/spend per visitor, always assuming you're an option for all, rather than a bespoke service).

My belief/hope? We've reached the tipping point for wedding lists - out with the old, in with the new.

The 'good' wedding list options, see five of the seven above, are starting to have an impact - some of the 'traditional' options may have much larger budgets and can spend their money on lots of advertising, but when it comes down to a one-to-one face off with the good guys they struggle... 

Ups and downs

First the ups;

Half a million pounds! That's how much we've generated for charities since we started - not as quickly as we would have hoped when we started but still a pretty good achievement for what is a small team of volunteers with limited backing and investment in a not-for-profit setup. We're proud at what we've achieved but determined to do more - it's been a tough year in terms of generating funds, and may not get easier for a while, but we're convinced we can continue to find couples who will make a difference.

But the odd down;

What a tricky couple of months - I got a cold in early December which turned to flu and I struggled to work much during that time. However I then got even worse and by Christmas was so ill I could hardly leave my room - I ended up in hospital just after Christmas where I stayed for a couple of weeks having been diagnosed with double pneumonia with various complications. I'm only just managing to spend a little time at my desk (and so thought I'd post) and have loads to catch up on for Give It. I was also due to start a new job in January (I finished my previous job in December) which obviously hasn't happened yet but I'm hopeful of trying to start in the next week or so, and build up slowly to full-time.

We start exhibiting in a few days time at The National Wedding Shows and it looks like I'll be relying more than usual on our group of volunteers - last Autumn's shows were the busiest we've ever been to and we're hoping this Spring's will be more of the same.

Busy, busy, busy...

Don't you hate it when you keep putting something off, deprioritising it, putting it to the bottom of the list or even forgetting?  The blog! I got quite into it and then we hit a really busy period and then bang...

I'm still here, still trying to encourage couples to make a difference on their big day. Lots has been happening - lots of wedding fairs, lots of couples, lots of donations - we're still growing year-on-year. We've also seen the sad demise of a 'competitor' - Wrapit. I feel sorry for all the couples and their guests who lost out, but also quite angry that businesses can be run so badly - even the few charities that were supposed to be getting something don't seem to have had funds transferred to them. Very disappointing. 

The person I mentioned that had the stroke earlier in the year? She's on the way to recovery, although it's a long road, and we've been able to add The Stroke Association to our list of charities (who helped her loads) - they'd already been on our list of charities that we wanted to bring onboard but we speeded things up!

We've just come back from three days at The National Wedding Show at Earls Court - really busy and really enjoyable. Great to get feedback and questions from couples and great to get such positive responses from many - although it's not everyone's cup of tea (one of the volunteers recalled a mother screaming at her daughter from yards away that there was no way she would allow her to have a charity gift list) there's a growing number of couples who seem to want to add something ethical to the big day. We're at the NEC next week so more of the same.

Andy 

Snow, wind and rain... plus a great start to our wedding shows

Just got back from our first wedding show of the Spring, The Scottish Wedding Show in Edinburgh. Scotland is one of our 'hotspots' for couples using our wedding lists and we love the show we go to each year in Edinburgh - we have some great conversations and get great feedback and this year was no exception.

More couples had thought about having a charity wedding list and we got a much better reaction this year to The Scottish Wedding List - we'd only just gone live last time we were there but this year have an even stronger line-up of charities on the service - charities like Alzheimer Scotland, Cornerstone Community Care and Quarriers have been joined by others including Chest Heart and Stroke Scotland, Turning Point Scotland and Scottish International Relief (and we still have a couple more expected to be joining soon).

While in Scotland I couldn't help heading to the hills for a walk and headed to Perthshire for a spot of hill-walking in the snow - on occasions the views were great but (see the inset picture) at times I was reliant on my compass as I could barely see more than a few yards!

We've got two major three-days shows to come in two of the next three weekends (both in London) - The Designer Wedding Show and The National Wedding Show - I'm rounding up the volunteers!

Andy 

Green weddings and why we do what we do...

Green weddings are all the rage but there's such a range of advice that it must be difficult for couples to wade through it all. Two items I saw recently;

One, on a 'green wedding' organisers blog, recommended a 'green venue' that had all manner of recycling options, had some solar-power etc - the recommendation, however, was that only a summer wedding could truly be considered green (as during the winter months there would be the need for 'traditional' power sources, the need for a hot meal rather than, maybe, a cold buffet etc). What absolute rubbish I thought; 50 people at a summer wedding = a saving on 50 lighting/heating/cooking bills for a summers day versus lighting/heating/cooking bills for those people in one location (i.e. a little more efficient, but being summer not much). However, the same number of people at a winter wedding = an even greater saving in bringing those people together, as instead of 50 people heating/lighting/cooking separately (i.e. at a greater level than during the summer) they would all be in one location, and so would generate a greater saving per person than during the summer. So winter weddings, arguably, are more environmentally efficient than summer weddings...just a little thought (and simple maths) might have helped.

The other item (in a wedding magazine) talked about being able to offset your honeymoon flights (a worthwhile activity), but the very next article encouraged couples to find a venue for their wedding in an exotic a place as possible, meaning that all of their guests would then have to fly there as well - the carbon footprint issue wasn't mentioned at all. I'm not suggesting couples should only marry in their nearest church and invite no-one (I certainly didn't) but as more and more options become available to marrying couples an eyes-open approach to all decisions wouldn't hurt either - sadly I'm not sure they can expect many in the wedding industry to help them.

Final thought for the entry; I was reminded at the weekend why we do what we do when someone I know had a stroke - at 43 she's on the young side but this isn't by any means unusual. It's early days and we're hopeful of a full recovery but we know it'll be a long road - it reminds me how lucky most of us are.

Andy

   

Everybody say 'aahhh'....

Now I'm not saying that we get emotionally attached to the couples who hold a wedding list with us, and nor am I saying that some of them may get attached to us, but we're only human, and it's amazing how being just a small part of someone's big day can really make you feel close!

It feels really good when some of them keep in touch and let us know how thing's are going - Jo and Chris have just sent us photos of their gorgeous daughter Isabella.

Jo and Chris used The Alternative Wedding List early in 2007 and Isabella arrived, 7 weeks early, in November - I know all babies look lovely but I think Isabella looks lovelier than most!

Andy

Christmas is coming...

We're already having a much busier December than last year. Although fewer people this year have signed up for The Alternative Christmas List (works like our wedding lists, your friends and family 'buy' one of the donations to charity rather than buy you a pair of socks) more people are actually using theirs when they do sign up - we've previously had lots of people who signed up for a Christmas list but then realised they were the ones who were going to be without presents so didn't actually use it. This year it seems that more people are realising that this is really the best sort of 'charity Christmas' to have, i.e. where you forsake presents YOU would have received rather than simply buying your family a charity gift they may not want (although obviously doing both, if your family approve, is even better!).

Having said that, we've also had quite an uplift of donations through our 'one-off' charity gift service Give It Gifts (where you make your donation instead of buying a physical gift and, instead of all the expense of gift cards, envelopes, postage etc, you just get a nice simple emailed PDF to send to the 'recipient'). The uplift started in November, and December's already our best month for the service so far. It's always been a bit of a 'sideline' as most people still seem to want something physical to show for their charity gift but maybe the whole 'green' angle is helping as well (having done the right thing why not go the whole hog and avoid wasting even more money).

My favourite piece of festive fare this Christmas has been from the charity Buglife, one of the recent additions to The Green Gift List. They've teamed up with children from St Augustine’s Junior School, Peterborough, to record a new version of a traditional Christmas song – ‘The Twelve Bugs of Christmas’. You can hear the song and see the accompanying film by clicking on this link: http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=_4-Bomnkd1w. Well worth a listen!

Andy

what a week...

Just had a really busy/eventful/emotional week...

Started off last Tuesday by having a few days mid-week break in Krakow with one of my daughters, Lauren (who's having a few months break between A-levels and starting a degree). It's a really lovely city, the old town is a great wander, some of the buildings are amazing, and the open-air market in the main square was good for picking up one or two Christmas presents. We also made a visit to Auschwitz-Birkenau, a few miles out of Krakow, an incredibly moving experience - so difficult/impossible to take it all in and I think I left with as many questions as answers (most of which I suspect can never really be answered, mostly those beginning with 'why'?).

It can be an interesting challenge trying to keep up with Give It while away from my desk (when and when not to lug your laptop around) - however, internet access in the hotel lobby; couldn't be easier! Back to the office on Saturday - having worked while away there wasn't much to catch up on but, with it being first of the month, lots of numbers to crunch over the next couple of days.

On Monday, took a few hours out to attend the funeral of an old work colleague. Just 55, cancer, great bloke/husband/dad. Lots of old colleagues there to remember him.

Then finally, this Tuesday, an early start, so I could get away in good time and get to see my youngest daughter Charli in the opening night of Romeo and Juliet at her college - she's playing Balthazar. Great performances from so many of the students (Juliet and Mercutio in particular) and, of course, from Charli (who opened the play - much emotion from proud father!).

I'm worn out!

Andy

Our last wedding show this year

We exhibited at our final show of the year yesterday, the last of the season's gay wedding shows. Great fun and quite relaxed - one of our favourite acts of these (or indeed any) shows are The Three Waiters. Pretending to be waiters at your event/wedding they suddenly burst into song, and at the shows they also provide a little entertainment to keep us wide awake.

It was also great that one of our registered couples came along and said hi - Lyn and Deb get hitched in March and had a few things left to find - great news that they'd already decided on their gift list!

On the charity front - lots happening! Suddenly a few we've been asking to come onboard are saying yes so lots of work in letting them know how things work, how we can get them setup on the gift lists, and then finally working on the details ('gifts' etc) that will actually become part of the lists. We're trying to get as many of the new charities sorted by the new year as that's when we tend to get a big increase in next year's marrying couples signing up. Last week however we also had a charity, that we've been talking to for a year that we wanted to try and raise money for through our Scottish gift lists, come back to us and let us know that they weren't going to join up - always a dissapointment after so much work but it just means the door is open for another.

Andy

Social Enterprise Day

Today is Social Enterprise Day - for many social enterprises it's an opportunity to celebrate their achievements within the communities they operate. Away from all the wedding fairs it can often feel like we're a little remote from our 'community' (the couples who use our wedding lists? the charities we generate money for? the end recipients in various countries of that money?) as for reasons of cost/efficiency we try to keep engagement to a minimum (i.e. mainly using the internet/email etc).

For us Social Enterprise Day is more about feeling part of a wider movement of different types of organisations trying to operate in the right way and make a difference at the same time. Although we're based just outside the capital we're members of Social Enterprise London and this gives us access to a variety of practical help, advice and other opportunities (including featuring on Shop Social Enterprise) - although we're not heavily involved it's really good to know they're there.

Meanwhile we're working on bringing a tranche of charities onto the various services in time for the new year;

The Green Gift List is one of our new services for 2008 and we're adding more charities there ready for the new year. One of these is elephant family who I went to see on Monday to start agreeing gifts for the website - there'll be some great ideas ("nibbles" - I'll say no more).

Bringing charities onto The Scottish Wedding List has been more of a challenge - as, generally, we have an idea of the ideal range of charities that we'd like on there (based on the sorts of charities that couples already select and also ask us for) we have a list of charities that we've already identified and been trying to bring on for the best part of a year. With many charities having such small fundraising teams it can take a while to get things moving, even when everybody wants to! Things seem to be picking up and so we're hopeful of getting the right mix of charities live for January.

Getting charities live for The London Wedding List was a little easier, although we're still adding a few more for next year - this service only went live in mid-2007, effectively missing the wedding season, so we're excited for what 2008 will bring.

Andy