2025 Conference & AGM – Book Your Tickets Now
The 2025 annual GCA Conference and AGM will be held in Manchester on Thursday 25th September 2025 at the lovely Manchester Hall. Please save the date! Tickets will be on sale soon!
We are delighted to announce that Pip Heywood, MD of thortful, wiill be one of our keynote speakers. Pip will speak about how we, as an industry, can work together to encourage more card-giving and attract new audiences, sharing an insight into thortful and their work with a broad range of designers.
Also speaking will be in-coming GCA President Karen Wilson, owner of Paper Salad, who will share a fascinating insight into her business journey.
Book now to take advance of our earlybird ticket price offer – and watch this space for more announcements soon!
2025 Conference Speakers
Pip Heywood – MD, thortful
The future of cards is about keeping them relevant, accessible, and exciting for evolving consumers. I’ll draw on how thortful can help in this endeavour by appealing to new digital-first audiences; being an incubator for new designs and even occasions or sentiments and the role we can play in attracting & nurturing new creative talent to the industry that benefits us all.
Jon Hendy – Business Unit Director, Kantar
Kantar are kindly back by popular demand! Jon Hendy heads up the team that delivers General Merchandise insight to Retail clients at Kantar, including the major grocers and specialists. Jon’s team covers Cards, Party and Gifting. Jon has worked in market research for nearly 30 years, the last 10 with Kantar, and has worked regularly with many of the UK’s biggest FMCG and GM companies. He will be sharing an insight into the consumers of 2025 and changes that Kantar are seeing in buying habits.
Karen Wilson – Owner, Paper Salad
Karen will take over as GCA President at this Conference, and will share some background to the Paper Salad success story, the challenges they overcame and the importance of brand.
About the Annual GCA Conference and AGM
The GCA’s annual Conference & AGM is a great opportunity to meet others, listen to inspirational speakers and learn about and discuss the key topics affecting our industry.
GCA Conferences move around the country each year to ensure that they are accessible to all 500+ GCA members. They are a key opportunity to keep up to date with what’s happening in the industry and learn from others. There is always lots of time to meet new colleagues and catch up with industry friends; we start the day with a networking coffee, with further opportunities to chat over a late morning coffee and lunch. Members from new and small businesses through to the industry leaders attend each year, including retailers, publishers and recommended specialist suppliers.
Each year we have an exciting line-up of speakers who cover the current key issues for the greeting card industry and share their business experiences. We also share the latest industry market research.
The day will include updates on GCA activities to promote and protect our wonderful industry, initiatives to support you and your business, and lots of marketing ideas.
The AGM part of the day includes updates on the activity of the GCA Council. The Council are responsible for general oversight of the management of the GCA, and focus on policy matters that affect members and our industry. The Council includes members with key skills and experience to enable us to effectively run the GCA in line with our stated objectives.
In recent years the GCA Conference has visited London, Manchester, Nottingham, Leeds and Bristol.
Book Your Tickets Now
Previous Conference Reports
2024 Conference and AGM – Bristol
2023 Conference and AGM – Leeds
2022 Conference and AGM – Nottingham
2021 Conference and AGM – Manchester
A summary of the 2021 GCA AGM and Conference held in Manchester.
2020 Conference and AGM – Online
Summary and AGM portion of the GCA 2020 AGM & Conference
