Asthma xmas cards

Does anyone know why i find it imposible to find asthma xmas cards for sale in charity shop ??

I even found a shop selling every charity card apart from Asthma.

I asked why this was and was told that they didn't know, even they were surprised. I know they can be bought on here but i dont want to make a donation to Royal mail with £3 50 postage. I'm sure a lot more would sell if they were avaible in charity shops.

[KateMoss]

Perhaps you could suggest this to AUK.

I think cards that are sold direct from charities such as via post or in the charity shops have a higher percentage of the costs go direct to the charity.

eg Oxfam cards from an Oxfam shop.

Some cards are sold though other outlets such as supermarkets & garden centres etc - some are charity specific where as others list 20-30 charities on the back (AUK was on a list some time ago for some cards) but the money is spread across the charities and less goes directly to the cause.

Also, AUK doesn't have charity shops like Oxfam.

[Hidden]

Thanks for reply Kate.

I think i understand where your comming from. I didn't buy any this year as i am not prepared to pay the postage. I would rather give the money direct to AUK.

But i would certainly buy them if i could without postage.

I went into a local town hall that was selling various chairty cards on a stall. But no Asthma ones. maybe AUK could look into this as no shop needed for this.

[Hidden]

Christmas Cards

I was surprised this year I got a charity card produced by ""Helpcards"" and listed amongst the charities they support is ""Asthma UK"", I wonder if Asthma UK know this.

I bought cards direct from Asthma UK a few years ago, but like others do not see the reason to have them sent to me, which probably means that it could cost the charity more to produce and send then what they would get in return.

Next year I will be looking for these cards produced by ""Helpcards"".

Happy New Year.

Ivor

[Hidden]

Ivor may i ask where you bought the cards from ?

i lloked high and low.

thanks

[Hidden]

ASthma UK Christmas Cards

Thank you all for your interest in Asthma UK, and in our Christmas cards.

As you have noticed, our cards have not recently been available through any of the temporary charity Christmas card shops that you see in high streets around the country such as Card Aid or Cards for Good Causes.

This is for three main reasons:

 Whilst the organisations that co-ordinate the shops may not be profit making organisations, they will still have staff and shop costs that they need to cover, which they in turn charge back to the charities that use the shops, which makes the net profits for the charity smaller per pack of cards than if they were selling the cards directly.

 Card shops which don’t charge costs to the charity, or charge lower costs, usually instead require the charity to provide volunteers to staff the stands in each of the shops where they are sold for a certain number of hours or days per week in the lead up to Christmas. Whilst Asthma UK has a large number of very dedicated supporters, we do not have enough that would be able to commit to helping us in this way all across the UK.

 When using card shops to sell charity cards, there is also a much greater risk of left over stock than when selling directly, due to the quantity of cards that would need to be produced to make sure they were available across the country. For example if each of 350 shops had even just 5 packs of cards left at the end of the season, that would leave Asthma UK with far more left over cards than the system we currently use. Left over stock can cause a huge financial loss to the charity in printing costs, as we would not necessarily be able to re-use or re-sell the cards.

At the moment we can't justify these additional costs, but we do review this issue when we start to plan our Christmas card sales each year and we will continue to review this every year to ensure that we can offer the best service to our supporters, while still making sure that the cards make enough profit to be worthwhile for the charity.

For the moment, our cards are available to order directly from Asthma UK via our website or from a paper catalogue and we do everything we can to keep the postage costs at a minimum. To save postage costs, you might like to team up with friends or neighbours and order your cards together so that they can be mailed as one big parcel.

If you would like to stock up now for next year, our cards are currently on sale to clear excess stock ready for next Christmas at asthma.org.uk/what_you_can_....

If you would like to be sent information about next year’s cards when they are available, please e-mail [e-mail], with your full name and contact details, so I can add you to our list.

We may also be trialling e-cards next year, so keep checking our website for news!