The Importance of Sending A Card
We all love to receive a card in the post… whether that’s for a special occasion, an update from a friend or just a message to say ‘I’m thinking of you’.
To cement those warm feelings around sending and receiving a card the Greetings Card Association launched Thinking of You Week in 2014… a special week every year to encourage us to embrace card sending and create a wave of love, friendship and happiness across the world through card sending.
The event, which encourages us all to ‘pay it forward’, by sending a card for no particular reason other than just to give the recipient a lovely, warm, positive boost in a way that only a card can give, has captured the hearts of a nation and 2020 is expected to be the biggest event yet. We talk to the Greeting Card Association’s CEO, Amanda Ferguson to find out more…
• Where did the idea for Thinking of You Week come from?
"The original idea was inspired by one of our members, Len Smith, who for Lent decided to send a card every day. He described how thrilled he was when, unexpectedly, he started receiving lots of cards back! The GCA decided we should look at extending this idea to encourage people to reach out to friends and relatives just to say ‘hello’, share a joke or say ‘thinking of you’, which is how Thinking of You Week was born."
• Why do you think card sending is so important and who does it appeal to?
"Receiving a greeting card makes people feel good, a fact confirmed by neuroscientist Dr Lynda Shaw! https://www.thinkingofyouweek.cards/238-2/ We are all on social media all the time, but receiving a card through the post from a loved one, or work colleague, just to say ‘miss you’, ‘remember when..’ ‘thinking of you’ means more and creates a powerful connection. The British are a nation of card senders; we send more cards per person than any other nation, a tradition that extends to the communities that form the UK, particularly Millennials – who are sending more cards than a generation ago!"
• Do you think that 2020 and our year of social distancing will have a positive on-going effect on card sending?
"Lockdown has seen a huge increase in people sending cards just to keep in touch, say ‘miss you’ ‘sending a hug’ or similar. Sending and receiving cards has kept grandparents in touch with grandchildren (and given home-schooling parents a craft project!), and friends or work colleagues unable to meet a way to reach out. Receiving cards has been really important to people isolating alone, and of course something nice to put on the mantlepiece a constant reminder of that warm feeling that someone is thinking of you."
What is the dream outcome from Thinking of You Week?
"That people will continue to keep in touch with the really important people in their lives through cards. People keep cards, it is lovely to look back at cards you have received from loved ones in the past, and of course they become social history – the next generation will wonder why there were so many cards featuring toilet rolls in March 2020!"
