In the words of Chris Bryan…
This article has been written by incoming GCA President, Chris Bryan, and is adapted from his talk at the 2021 Conference in Manchester.
“History, it’s a strange thing, our current world is possibly just coming through one of the most historic periods for many years.
And what a couple of years we’ve had, I still remember walking around the NEC Spring Fair in February 2020, thinking that virus thing sounds a bit scary and then BANG 6 or 7 weeks later all of our lives changed overnight! It’s difficult to put into words the enormity of what we’ve all been through both in business terms and personally; but as ever our amazing industry has not only struggled on but has become more important than ever. A truly wonderful person and senior industry figure once said to me…
greetings cards apart from being a way of conveying sentiment and sharing warm wishes, are actually a strong record of society at any given point in time, often reflecting changes in attitudes, key events in history and bookmarking notable figures of the time.
Well, the last couple of years have been fairly tumultuous both in terms of the UK and world events, so just to recap a little bit of recent history along with how our industry has documented it I’m going to take you on a quick trip down memory lane.
8 January 2020 – Megxit
Even before the pandemic hit the UK, our Island nation was making world news. After being married a little over 18 months, Prince Harry and Meghan decided to take a step back from Royal Duties and within a few months had left the UK. Obviously, having recently established themselves as the more down to earth Royals, the tabloids had a field day:
and never one’s to miss out on being topical the greeting cards industry was not far behind….
Brexit
And before we’d had chance to digest how we felt about the new Royals deserting us, on January 31st, the United Kingdom officially withdrew from the European Union, finalizing “Brexit.”
The enormity of departing the EU after 47 years of relaxed trade and free movement of labour, is still possibly only being realized now with the ongoing lorry driver crisis but as an industry we documented the feelings of a divided nation.
11 March 2020 – Harvey Weinstein was sentenced to 23 years in prison
You might ask was this a world event? but this was possibly the most ground-breaking result of the #MeToo movement. Whilst origins of “Me Too” are found back as far as 2006, on the 15th October 2017, actress Alyssa Milano wrote in a tweet: “If you’ve been sexually harassed or assaulted write ‘me too’ as a reply to this tweet.” The response was amazing as thousands of women across the world became empowered to speak out against sexual harassment and suddenly the powerful, previously “untouchable” men across the world were publicly outed for their predatory behaviour and a little over two years after the tweet that rocked the boat, one of the most powerful movie producers in the world was jailed for a string of abuses over many years. That one simple hashtag message has become one of the most powerful of the 21st century.
Feb – March 2020 Coronavirus
As the fear of the deadly virus mounted with cases starting to rise rapidly in the UK, the fear of shortages hit the public and panic buying became a thing:
And then on March 23rd 2020 – Boris delivered a national address re the Coronavirus outbreak… “Good Evening, the coronavirus is the biggest threat this country has faced for decades – and this country is not alone. All over the world we are seeing the devastating impact of this invisible killer. And that’s why we’ve been asking people to stay at home during this pandemic. And though huge numbers are complying – and I thank you all – the time has now come for us all to do more. From this evening I must give the British people a very simple instruction – you must stay at home.”
And with those simple words, the UK entered its’ first lockdown, a word that had previously meant nothing to the British public.
Throughout the course of the pandemic more words and phrases have become common place: PPE / social distancing / unprecedented / bubble / ZOOM meeting / working from home / furlough / isolation / lateral flow testing…
and bizarrely even scientists became cult heroes…
26 March 2020 – Clap for carers
Whilst we were all struggling to understand the enormity of the lockdown and manage the fear of the pandemic, we all went out on a Thursday night at 8pm and clapped or banged pots and pans to thank those that were putting their lives on the line to try and save our loved ones.
6 April 2020 – Captain Sir Thomas Moore
On 6 April 2020, with his 100th birthday approaching, Captain Tom began a fundraising campaign for the (NHS). He aimed to complete one hundred 25-metre lengths of his garden, ten lengths per day, with the help of a walking frame, branding the endeavour “Tom’s 100th Birthday Walk for the NHS”.
The initial £1,000 goal having been realised on 10 April, the target was increased, first to £5,000 and later to £500,000. He achieved his target of one hundred lengths on the morning of 16 April. But by the 30th April, the morning of his 100th birthday, he had raised over £32 million.
Obviously, there were cards to reflect the great man’s achievements:
…but what was more staggering was the 150,000 plus cards that were sent in by people to wish him a happy 100th birthday…
On 17 July 2020, he was personally knighted by the Queen at Windsor Castle for his charity achievement. Sadly, he died in February 21 but he will forever be remembered for his humility and selfless actions.
VE Day
The 8th May marked the 75th anniversary of the end of World War Two in Europe. The day was one of celebration and remembrance in Britain and saw people coming together to enjoy the victory in streets up and down the country albeit socially distanced and some sent cards…
Black Lives Matter
The movement began in July 2013, with the use of the hashtag #BlackLivesMatter on social media but returned to US national headlines and gained further international attention during the global George Floyd protests in May 2020. Two days later on the 26th May, protests started in the UK, which rapidly spread across the country. As well as providing solidarity to protests in the United States, many of the ongoing protests in the United Kingdom were highlighting issues with racism faced from law enforcement in the United Kingdom and in daily life.
Taking the knee to show solidarity with the movement spread throughout all walks of life and particularly in the sporting world with many footballers speaking out, notably Marcus Rashford. #BlackLivesMatter has become possibly one the most internationally recognized #tags and one of the largest movements in the fight to achieve racial equality.
Further awareness continues to develop – last month we celebrated Black History Month.
19 December 2020 – XMAS CANCELLED
With another wave of the virus, after we’d all been longing to see loved ones for so long, Christmas was reduced to a quick bubbled day at the last minute for many and cancelled completely for those in TIER 4.
January 2021
And then with an almighty sense of relief we said goodbye to 2020 and hoped for a better year and suddenly with vaccine’s now available from three companies, we all got quietly optimistic for a return to normality.
Since then, we’ve all been slowly working towards a time of normality when we can live the lives we used to but its’ also important to remember the other ongoing issues that we all became increasingly aware of over the last few years.
Diversity
With the growing awareness of the LGBTQ+ community and more recently the race inequality issues highlighted by the Black Lives Matters movement and then having seen how a rogue head of state can divide a nation, stoking the flames of hatred, we all reflected on how we as a society need to be more accepting, inclusive and to challenge prejudice in all aspects of life.
Mental Health
Issues of loneliness, isolation, depression across all age groups but particularly the young have increased dramatically and now more than ever people have reached out with a card just to say I’m thinking of you. The GCA promotes Thinking Of You Week annually and earlier this year a GCA competition in collaboration with the University of Hertfordshire challenged young illustrators to produce cards to encapsulate this message, which were then printed and some were sold through House of Cards stores.
Sustainability
Even before Greta Thunberg came to our attention our industry had identified sustainability issues and had started to address them. Under the guidance of my predecessor president, Rachel Hare of Belly Button Designs, the GCA have pushed for greater industry awareness of more sustainable options within our industry. In fact the push for “naked cards” (cards without cello) was first started at the 2018 GCA Conference by then president Ceri Stirland of UK Greetings. At the 2019 Conference Ceri estimated that by January 2020 the volume of cards cello wrapped would fall from 64% to 32% – a reduction of 438 tonnes.
We will continue to supply our members with the latest information and developments on what we all appreciate is a vital matter for the future of us all.
Well as you can see our industry has annotated what has to be one of the most monumental periods of time in recent years and proved to be a real turn to method of communication and social expression in our darkest of days. In 2021, the GCA decided to conduct some consumer market research to see how people’s attitudes towards card sending had changed in light of the last couple of years. This report is available (free to most members) in the GCA Library or can be purchased by non-members.
One key point of the report is that as of early August this year 80% of card buyers said they were now purchasing as many cards, or higher, than they were pre Covid, and the majority of those believe they will continue the same pattern going forward – with more than one in ten intending to send more greeting cards in the future.
In summary, whilst our industry has seen significant hardships over the last 18 months, we’ve fared much better than many other industries and our consumers, the British public has not lost their appreciation for the humble greeting card, if anything they’ve rediscovered their appetite for our most wonderful way of communicating sentiment. So on that note lets all go out and be proud of what we do, safe in the knowledge that everything we work towards is centred around a caring thought and a wish to share it with those that we love.”
– Chris Bryan, GCA President.
Further links
ITV reflected on the importance of sending cards during the lockdown of 2020.
Captain Tom captured the nations hearts in Spring 2020 as he set out to fund raise, and received over 200,000 cards from well-wishers.
The greeting card industry film reminding everyone of the power of sending and receiving a card during the first lockdown of 2020.
