give it

Being a dad...

...is such a mixture of roles. Nappy-changer, school taxi-driver, investment banker, sports club taxi-driver, advisor, late-night taxi-driver, diplomat...

But as I get older it all seems to be paying off - it feels like I'm doing much more sitting back and admiring what my kids are achieving. Take today for instance...

This is Corinne, receiving her Foundation Degree up at Sunderland University today.

Not content with bringing up her three beautiful boys and holding down a full-time job, she's also been working towards her business degree (with a lot of support from her employer). Corinne has just emailed me this picture and said I can go along next time to see her pick up the full degree if I promise not to show her up by blubbing... I said I'd be there but couldn't promise anything.

My role today? Very proud dad!

Andy

New charities

Over recent weeks we've been trying to add a few more charities to the various services ready for 2010;

Onto The African Wedding List we've been able to add the brilliant AMREF and the wonderful Tree Aid and, hopefully, have two more charities lined up for this service; we think these, with those already live, will give us the right balance between choices for couples/guests and manage-ability while we grow (but let us know if you think we've missed some obvious causes).

Elsewhere it's getting a little painful. We have a few gaps on each of the other services and a few charities we'd love to bring on but we so often find a mis-match between the charities that WE'D like to bring on there (a combination of suggestions from couples, recognisable charities, and particular 'gaps' for a type of charity) and those that are able to find a little time to decide that they'd like to. 

We also have a fair idea of the ongoing criteria (and a list of charities we'd like) for charities that get in touch, so we can often say yes straight away to a charity that asks, plus we are also trying to get a few more involved via Gifts4Good if we don't have space on one of the wedding list services - however all too often the conversation goes like this;

Charity - "Just come across you" (including many we've written to previously). "Can we join?"

Give It - "Yes, that would be great. Here's how it works."

Charity - "Thanks, we'll get back to you". Then silence for a few months.

Give It - "Would you still like to join? Can we help answer any queries?"

Charity - "A 'read receipt' of the email" Then silence for a few months more.

Give It - gives up...

12 months later.

Charity - "Just come across you. Can we join?"...

Rejection would be fine, it's the silence that I struggle with! Occasionally the queries bounce back for a while, but mostly it's just about someone making a decision - the longest backward and forward we had with a charity (we wanted them to join, they assured us they also did) lasted three years before we gave up - some charities that joined at the same time as we started to try and bring them onboard had received tens of thousands of pounds by then...

Sorry to moan!

Andy 

Please vote for us!

It's the 5th annual wedding awards from Wedding Ideas magazine. Now we do like them there (Rachel, Martha and Pippa especially), they mention us in the magazine every so often (which is, of course, really nice of them) and we do spend a fair bit of money advertising with them as well, so it would be great if we could get some votes in their awards.

So just follow this link and vote for us; please, pretty please, I'm on my knees begging you please...

http://bit.ly/2V7fMG

But only if you think we deserve to be voted for of course!

You do have to get through quite a few categories before you get to 'wedding lists' but worth it in the end to be able to vote for Give It when you get there. And if you're not sure who to vote for when it comes to 'Shoes' we'd suggest Victoria Allinson - she's brilliant!

Andy

Getting excited about biology

Now it's been a while since I was last excited by biology (if you exclude the process of babies being born etc, which always gets me interested). But suddenly I find myself reading about cells and enzymes!

It's all because of the most recent place one of our Gifts4Good wish lists has appeared (and the first time, as far as we know, that one has been used in such a way). 

The wish list appears on Science Video Resources, a blog by Stephen Taylor, a "resource primarily for the IB Biology Students  of Bandung International School, though all are free to use it. The resources, videos and links here have been chosen to help you go beyond the lessons and get a deeper understanding of Science and Biology". What lucky students to have such a great resource, and what a great guy to ask anyone who feels like showing some appreciation to make a donation to one of his chosen charities.

Be careful to set aside a few hours though, this stuff is seriously engaging!

Andy

Show season and The African Wedding List

Nearly time for the Autumn shows, first one is this weekend at Earls Court followed by the Designer Wedding Show the weekend after.

Leaflets have been printed (on FSC paper of course) and volunteers have volunteered (and their train tickets are en-route, although I had to pay extra to get them there because of a postal strike). It could be Lauren's last show for a while as she's expecting a baby boy come January (and so may be taking a few more breaks than normal this weekend!). We've also lost another one of our volunteers temporarily already (hope she'll be able to fit us in once things settle down) as Charli has just started at Salford Uni and is already rehearsing for an event at the Lowry that starts next Monday. Having said that one of our other volunteers comes back having missed the Spring, and I'm back to full fitness, so we should be okay (but anyone fancy a few hours at Earls Court?)!

Meanwhile this week we've launched our latest gift list - The African Wedding List. Like our Scottish, London and Green versions it allows us to bring on some more charities (that would otherwise get lost on our main gift list service of The Alternative Wedding List) and, if it works like our other options, allows couples to choose a wedding list service that more reflects them. As always it's really exciting to launch a new gift list and this is one we've been hoping to get off the ground for a while.

Appearing so far are several of our existing charities that work in Africa alongside some new charities including AfriKids and Street Child Africa, both of whom we've been trying to find a gap for on our services for a while now. We've got more new ones in the pipeline but, as usual, it can be a slow process bringing charities on (both parties often having so little spare time).

If you're going to any of the shows we're at do come and say hello.

Andy

Getting back to normal

It's been a tough few months!

At Give It we continue to see lots of couples signing up for our wedding lists, but have noticed that more and more of their guests are picking lower-priced gifts this year than ever before. Looking long term this can't be described as bad - couples are still going for it, but many guests (like all of us) are obviously feeling the pinch. This still bodes well for the future!

As for me, it's been a tough first half of the year recovering from my double pneumonia - this month we (my personal trainer and me!) finally managed to get my lungs back to normal (getting my left lung from half-size to full capacity...my right one was more or less back to normal fairly quickly) which means everything's stopped jiggling around inside...

Having not 'worked out' for years (always managed to stay fit working and walking) it's been a mix of good fun and a lot of pain! Now all I have to do is get fit again with my nice new set of lungs working properly now, so another month or two and I'll be fighting fit - just in time for the next round of wedding shows.

I've kept my brain going by working on Gifts4Good, adding a variety of tweaks having got the new wish list facility up and running recently. I've also been working on getting some new charities involved ready for a new wedding list service we're launching soon - details to follow...

Andy

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