We’re thrilled to announce our partnership with circular fashion pioneers, Swoperz, circular fashion pioneers for children aged 6-16 years old. With the UK in lockdown and 2 young girls to keep occupied Swoperz’s founders, Vicky and Charlie, sat through another socially distanced garden fashion show. As the kids rummaged in each other’s wardrobes, excited to swap and share their clothes, the idea for Swoperz was born.
The girls found empowerment in taking charge of their fashion decisions, free from the influence of their grown-ups. Liberated by the idea of experimenting and having fun with their wardrobe, they enthusiastically inspired their friends to join in. Charlie and Vicky followed suit, and found themselves fielding inquiries from adults and children eager to be part of the movement.
Swoperz is the only preloved kids’ marketplace where children aged 6-16 years are in control. Kids snap and upload unwanted items whilst browsing through hundreds of high-quality preloved garments in an environment that is designed with their needs in mind. Swoperz understands the inevitability of children outgrowing clothes. They’re committed to saving time and money for families with growing kids every day.
Swoperz is an empowering, disruptive, next-generation marketplace positioned to redefine consumption habits through its innovative approach and strategic partnerships. There’s a significant disconnect between kids and their knowledge of the detrimental effect fast fashion and overconsumption have on the planet. Swoperz aims to educate the next generation of consumers to make more informed lifestyle choices.
Swoperz wants kids to be in control of their style, but always with a conscience. So, they’ve created a safe, grownup-verified environment. Kids can swap their clothes without any worries about the planet or their online safety. Safety isn’t just a promise; it’s Swoperz’s guiding principle. Children’s welfare remains paramount, safeguarded within their verified environment. Extending a helping hand, Swoperz facilitates free swapping of school uniforms, uniforms, and sports kits. They are keen to ease the financial burden on parents.
Safety on the platform
Swoperz has adopted the highest safety measures to ensure the well-being of children and teenagers while using their community and enabling safe digital parenting. Swoperz meets the legal requirements relating to children’s safety online. They’ve partnered with a company that verifies that a person claiming to be a child’s parent is indeed that child’s parent or guardian. Because of this process, this presents an opportunity to connect directly and consensually with the next generation of brand advocates.
Swoperz is making waves in the fashion and innovation arena. They are the winners of the eBay Circular Fashion Innovation Fund 2024. Family Perks partners with Go Henry, among others. Together, we can regenerate the planet and use fashion for good!
For further information, head over to Swoperz’s LinkedIn and blog pages.
Why a volunteer recruitment campaign?
In 2023, in response to feedback from our members in our Together we inspire surveys, we created and launched our volunteer recruitment campaign, Pass it on. Members asked for more support and focus on recruiting volunteers to ease the burden of administration pressures and build resilience at local levels and throughout the organisation.
We joined forces with an external agency, Creativity Unbound, to develop a campaign that would help us recruit volunteers, raise brand awareness, and cherish our existing members, reminding them that they are awesome.
You’re awesome… Pass it on!
Our aim has been to build brand awareness for modern Girlguiding across Anglia, reminding people that Girlguiding is still going strong, and to support the local ask for volunteers in our counties across Anglia.
Launch day
On 8 May 2023, we launched our Pass it on campaign with a big fundraising event at The Forum, Norwich. 50 volunteers courageously took the plunge and abseiled from the top of The Forum, whilst others sang campfire songs, sold cakes, and helped spread the word about Girlguiding.
We were thrilled to have been joined by our team from Hautbois Activity Centre who led midi-fencing and soft archery, our retail team supported visitors with merchandise and uniforms, whilst the team from Girlguiding Norfolk’s Archive Resource Centre shared their wonderful history of guiding displays. We were also excited to welcome reporters from the BBC and ITV, who shared coverage of the event, both on screen and over the radio.
The event received an amazing reaction, particularly on Facebook, where our engagement rate soared above all expectations. The event raised over £7000 to support the Pass it on campaign, and it’s delivery at region and local levels. So a massive thank you to everyone who attended, our amazing abseilers who raised so much sponsorship money, and members of the public for getting involved wholeheartedly.
Thanks, must also go to our special guests for their attendance: the Lord Mayor and Sheriff of Norwich, our partners easyfundraising, and children’s presenter and author, Jess French. We were honoured to have you all there supporting us and getting involved in helping us reach more potential awesome volunteers.
Next steps
Following the launch day event, we initiated the next phase of the campaign, including bus and radio campaigns, alongside an online advertising campaign, which began on launch day. We received so many photos of our bus adverts out in the wild across the region – some of them are even still out there today! Our radio campaign was fun, energetic and had a fantastic response from the public, listened all the way through by 93% of listeners, which is amazing! Our online campaign called for new volunteers to join us and share what makes them awesome with the women of the future. The campaign ads that featured on both Facebook and Instagram were viewed 55,758 times and reached 28,000 people!
The all members call
We knew how important it would be to bring our local members onboard with the campaign, so they could utilise the campaign assets and resources to best support that local ask for volunteers in communities across the region. At the start of the campaign, we ran an ‘all members’ call, hosted by our region chief commissioner, Karen Johnson, to introduce the campaign, explain its purpose and let leaders know how they could support the campaign.
The Promote and Grow challenge
We created a Promote and Grow challenge badge for our members, because who doesn’t love a badge? The challenge supports members to help us spread the word about Girlguiding, build brand awareness and take advantage of PR opportunities. The badge is still available and free to claim as long as members complete at least 5 of the suggested activities, and we have now sent out over 730 badges!
Local recruitment packs
We were able to secure some funding to put towards supporting the recruitment campaign at a local level. We invested in unit recruitment packs which contained leaflets and flyers for display in community areas and thank you cards intended for existing volunteers or parent helpers. Nearly 3500 packs were sent out to unit leaders, with a few leaders getting in touch to request additional leaflets to share – there are still top ups available for leaders, just get in touch via hello@girlguiding-anglia.org.uk to claim some!
Website development
To support the Pass it on campaign, we developed new areas of the website to provide more information to volunteer enquirers. During the opening months of our campaign (May and June 2023), our new volunteering webpage was viewed almost 1,000 times. We also made the jump to Google Analytics 4, to ensure we could continue using Google’s analytical functionality in tracking website campaign activity and seeing our return on investment.
The impact
What impact did this first phase have on our volunteer numbers? Well, volunteer joiners in June 2023 were higher than they’d been in the same month for the last 4 years. And our volunteer leavers were lower in June 2023 than in 2019, 2021 and in 2022!
The campaign continues
Phase 1 of our campaign was full on! In the next phase we took a more focused approach, attending freshers’ fairs to target students who could be recruited into our Inspire community of volunteers aged 18-30. With the support of funding from the Uniformed Youth Fund, we went out to Anglia Ruskin University’s campus in Cambridge, and the University of East Anglia. From these events, Girlguiding Cambridgeshire East received 20 enquiries, and Girlguiding Norfolk received 14 enquiries.
We were pleased to join Girlguiding UK in supporting Children in Need in 2023. During November, we took the opportunity to reach out to families with girls on our waiting lists, to ask them if they would like to join in the fun. We got in touch with over 9,500 contacts, sharing our Children in Need activity pack, our spot-kick challenge and links to the volunteer recruitment campaign for parents interested in getting involved in Girlguiding alongside their daughters.
The impact of the campaign was still showing later in the year. Volunteer joiners in September 2023 recovered to pre-pandemic trends and are higher even than they were in 2019. Plus, volunteer leavers are still lower in September 2023 than they have been in the last 5 years.
Pass it on… 2024 – what’s next?
After the momentum we built in 2023, the charity’s trustees were keen to maintain the investment in volunteer recruitment. After presenting results from 2023 and plans for 2024, the communications and growth teams received the full backing from the executive committee to invest in the ongoing campaign. We are delighted to be able to continue the project and to support our regional investment with external funding.
This year we’ve already undertaken extensive development of our LinkedIn strategy to support reaching new audiences potentially interested in volunteering, organisations implementing volunteering schemes for their employees, and potential partners who can help us bring more amazing opportunities to our volunteers and girls.
Volunteer enquiries
In January, we launched a new enquiry mailout for contacting potential new volunteers, welcoming them to the organisation and signposting them to some excellent resources. We also shared our ‘Welcome to Girlguiding Anglia’ resource which shares all of the amazing opportunities for flexible and regular volunteering available in Girlguiding.
International Women’s Day
On International Women’s Day, we used our campaign to share some shocking statistics brought to light by Girlguiding’s Girls’ Attitudes Survey 2023: 1 in 10 girls believe they’re hardly ever given the same opportunities as boys. Girlguiding provides an incredibly important girl-only safe space for girls to grow, learn and have fun. Using an online campaign across Facebook and Instagram, we called for people to volunteer with Girlguiding Anglia and help us build a more equal world.
The region roadshow
We have great plans for our region roadshow in 2024. We kicked things off with the RSPB at 3 of their reserves across the region: Rainham Marshes in Essex, Minsmere in Suffolk, and The Lodge in Bedfordshire. Deputy chief commissioner, Claire Course, and assistant chief commissioner, Chris Skinner, joined over 260 girls at the reserves to experience the outdoors, have adventures, and promote wellbeing. Our events with the RSPB were followed by a visit to Girlguiding Hertfordshire’s 110th anniversary event, attended by region chief commissioner, Karen Johnson, and hundreds of girls from across the county.
Coming next
Our new online campaign will be launching soon; if it crosses your Facebook or Instagram feed, please give it a like or a share. We’d love to reach more potential volunteers who can help our members continue the great guiding experience they offer to over 44,000 girls in Anglia.
Website development
We’ll be continuing to review the user experience on our website to support further development in 2024. We’ll be looking at how to bring even more new volunteers in through our website by providing more information about different types of volunteering opportunities for enquiring volunteers. We’ll also be making recruitment assets more accessible for leaders to use for local recruitment.
Waiting lists
Following the success of reaching out to adults of girls on our waiting lists, including Children in Need 2023, Brownies Go Explore 2023 and Super Rainbows 2022, we will be sharing new opportunities for these girls to get involved in 2024, sharing with them our brand new Summer Quest challenge. The challenge will be launching to our full membership in May half term 2024.
The region roadshow
Our next region roadshow event sees us at the Suffolk County Show at the end of May with volunteers from Girlguiding Suffolk. We’ll be attending the Essex and Norwich Pride events this summer, with many other counties supporting Pride in other cities across Anglia. In September and October, we’ll be visiting university campuses to attend freshers’ fairs, highlighting volunteering opportunities to students and reconnecting relocating students with the Girlguiding communities in their new homes. Keep an eye out to see where we’ll be popping up in your county over the coming months.
Volunteers’ Week 2024
Volunteers’ Week 2024 will be the flagship marker for our recruitment campaign this year. We’ve been busy creating a hero video to share across Volunteers’ Week and other waves of the Pass it on campaign. Make sure to keep an eye out for it coming across your social media channels and our website. Don’t forget to give it a like or share to keep the message going.
Hearing from you
We’ll continue keeping you up to date on all our recruitment activities on our social media, website, and newsletter, Signpost. Don’t forget, if you need any support or any resources, get in touch with the region team via hello@girlguiding-anglia.org.uk.
As in our previous plans, our main focus in this next phase will be brand awareness at a regional level and supporting our members’ local recruitment. We’d love to know if there’s anything we can do to support you more with your own local recruitment campaigns. Please get in touch and share your thoughts and needs.
Thank you to all our members for their support and hard work, you’re amazing… Pass it on!
We are delighted to share that Sheila Betts of Girlguiding Cambridgeshire East was awarded a BEM in the January New Year’s Honours.
A Brownie and Guide herself in her youth, Sheila led 3rd Trumpington Brownie unit from 1992 until 2012. She then stepped back as a unit leader, remaining involved as unit treasurer. Whilst you might think that 20 years of being a Brown Owl was reason enough to be awarded a BEM, Sheila doesn’t limit her volunteering to Trumpington Brownies. Sheila held various roles within Girlguiding, including assistant county commissioner and district commissioner. This is as well as communications and PR adviser for Cambridgeshire East.
Circa 2005, Sheila was involved in the refurbishment of Hautbois Activity Centre. The project improved the accessibility, environmental footprint and energy-efficiency of the centre. Hot on the heels of this, Sheila was asked to chair a management committee meeting of the Jarman centre, Girlguiding Cambridgeshire East’s residential and activity centre at Newmarket. This is a role she still holds some 16 years later.
This is just a snapshot of what Sheila has done, and there is much more.
We are all very proud of her and delighted that all her efforts have been recognised. Very well deserved.
I’m so excited to share my first Lunar New Year blog as a member of Girlguiding Anglia! Hi, I’m Lauren, I grew up in Singapore and celebrated the Lunar New Year every year with my family and friends. Since moving to the UK, I’ve kept up my celebrations and traditions and have included my favourite ones in this blog. I’ve also written an accompanying activity sheet that can be used at unit meetings, at home or at the workplace. I hope you enjoy reading about the celebrations and I can’t wait to usher in the new year with you all.
Lunar New Year marks the first new moon of the lunisolar calendar and occurs on a different day each year. The cycle is 12 years long and is marked by 12 zodiac animals, one for each year. This year celebrates the year of the dragon, bringing good luck and prosperity to those born in 1952, 1964, 1976, 1988, 2000, 2012, 2014 and children born this year. The first day of Lunar New Year is 10 February. The new year is celebrated throughout east Asia and by many who live abroad. Celebrations occur over a 15-day period and traditions vary from country to country but there are a few that are not to be missed.
Many new year superstitions and traditions centre around the imminent arrival of the luck god and the rival evil spirit Nian. Families will gather on the eve of the new year for a reunion dinner and will engage in the following auspicious activities:
- Wearing bright colours, mostly red, pink, and orange to scare off Nian and attract luck and good fortune.
- Eating traditional dishes that include noodles to symbolise long and healthy life, fish to symbolise happiness and oranges to symbolise prosperity.
- Using sparklers, fireworks, and rattles to scare Nian away from their houses.
- Exchanging red packets or hong bao, older relatives will usually give children and single adults these auspicious blessings in denominations of 2, 8 and 10 – never give someone a sum containing the number 4! It is a sign of bad luck and misfortune.
Some of my other favourite traditions are eating a sticky caramel rice cake called Nian Gao, thought to have been created to be so delicious and glutinous that it would glue Nian’s mouth shut, rendering it unable to consume any more good fortune. Additionally, throughout the 15-day celebratory period, families don’t clean their houses or throw any rubbish away, to not accidentally get rid of the wealth and blessings showered on their homes during the Lunar New Year. Instead, families will clean meticulously before the first day, making sure to throw out anything unlucky. Many companies will invite lion or dragon dancers into their offices where the performers skilfully navigate the desks and paperwork, to usher in a prosperous year of business. These performances are usually accompanied by loud percussive music and chanting auspicious phrases in mandarin. I find that my new years have been lots quieter here than at home!
I hope this blog has been a helpful introduction to the Lunar New Year and I can’t wait to see how you and your girls take part in the festivities. It is so wonderful to see everyone celebrate a holiday from another culture and I’m excited for the many festivals and traditional holidays that Girlguiding now recognises and celebrates. Celebrating our differences and uplifting girls in minority ethnic groups is more important now than ever. Personally, I can’t wait to have my friends round and cook a delicious meal for all of us to enjoy!
Share your experiences, celebrate with us on social media and don’t forget have fun!
新年快樂 (Xin Nian Kuai Le) and happy celebrating!