Royal Mail to support Thinking of You Week

Royal Mail will be supporting Thinking of You Week 2023 with a special postmark, which will be printed on all mail stamped and posted between September 18 and 24. The message will be: Send A Card, Deliver A Smile for Thinking of You Week

Thinking of You Week is organised by the Greeting Card Association and sees people across the world send cards to friends, loved ones, work colleagues, neighbours to say hello, thinking of you, share a joke or just to reach out and connect.

Retailers signed up so far for this year’s event include Cardzone, Scribbler, Sainsburys, Tesco and Asda.

At PG Live, Amanda Fergusson, GCA CEO and Adriana Lovesy, marketing and membership coordinator, were busy getting the message across to the industry, handing out flyers encouraging retailers and suppliers to get involved.

Last year more than 1,000 retailers across the UK, plus many others in the US, Australia and New Zealand took part in this special week.

The GCA is encouraging early orders to ensure there is sufficient stock in store for September and to start planning activities to promote this occasion to your community.

One successful campaign from last year was the Schools Project for Thinking of You Week, which saw more than 6,000 of children in the UK and Ghana exchange cards. If you are interested in running a similar project for your local school contact adriana@gca.cards.

The GCA heads to Pride

As we went to press, GCA members were getting ready to take their place in the Pride in London 2023 parade, through Central London.

GCA CEO Amanda Fergusson, said: ‘’It will be a wonderful opportunity to showcase the diversity of products in our industry and promote greeting card sending.’’

The GCA will form a 50-person walking group, supporting the LGBTQ+ community and celebrating the diverse greeting cards that our industry produces. GCA members have donated 10,00 LGBTQ+ themed cards, which will be handed out by both the GCA and the Royal Mail float.

Mark Callaby, co-Founder of Ohh Deer, leads the GCA Diversity and Inclusion Sub-Committee. He said: ‘’I’m a proud member and supporter of the LGBTQ+ community and have been wanting to do something that supports and showcases this part of our industry for a while. Pride in London is the largest Pride event in the UK and I’m excited that our application was successful.

‘’Greeting cards send a powerful message to anyone who receives them and as an industry we’re already producing a really rich and inclusive collection of cards that send messages of love and support.’’