Pink Sisters Wellbeing Club: A Roller Banner, Tote Bags and Pens for a Community Stand
Hotline sponsored a roller banner, cotton tote bags and printed pens for Pink Sisters Wellbeing Club's stand at a...
Hotline sponsored a roller banner, cotton tote bags and printed pens for Pink Sisters Wellbeing Club's stand at a Doncaster Council event.
Related topics
View allHotline Promotional Products sponsored a roller banner, branded cotton tote bags and printed pens for the Pink Sisters Wellbeing Club, a Doncaster peer support group for people affected by breast cancer, at an event run in partnership with Doncaster Council. Those three items together were the group's entire stand.
| Name | Description |
|---|---|
| Client | Pink Sisters Wellbeing Club, a peer support group in Doncaster |
| Sector | Health, peer support and community wellbeing |
| Products | A2 roller banner, branded cotton tote bags, printed promotional pens |
| How it was funded | Hotline sponsorship |
| Events supported | A Pink Sisters Wellbeing Club event run in partnership with Doncaster Council |
| Result | Described by the founder as a conversation starter, and as creating identity and belonging beyond the events themselves |
Products featured in this sponsorship
View All
Who Pink Sisters are
Pink Sisters Wellbeing Club was founded by Annie in Doncaster after she was diagnosed with breast cancer at 28.
I wanted to create a space where people can have the support they need, a sister-hood.
The group runs wellbeing activities across Doncaster and is expanding: a twelve-week Boxercise programme, sound bath sessions with Unwind with Lisa, free yoga and a book club. The event Hotline supported was run in partnership with Doncaster Council.
What a small organisation actually needs to run a stand
Most merchandise advice assumes you already have a stand and are choosing what to give away from it. For a small group at a public event, the stand itself is the problem.
Pink Sisters needed three things and they each do a different job:
- Something that says who you are from a distance. A roller banner. People decide whether to walk over from about ten metres away, and that decision is made on whether they can tell what you are.
- Something to give people who stop. Printed pens. Cheap enough to hand over freely, useful enough not to be refused, and small enough that taking one does not feel like a commitment.
- Something to carry what they leave with. Cotton tote bags. At an event where a visitor collects leaflets from several stands, the bag with your name on it is the one holding everybody else's material.
That is a complete stand for a volunteer-run group, and it is a considerably shorter list than most people expect.
Why the banner does the job the bags cannot
The banner is the item people underestimate, because it is the only one nobody takes home.
Merchandise works on the people who already stopped. A banner works on the people deciding whether to. At a council-run public event with a room full of stands, a group without one is a table with some leaflets on it, and a group with one is an organisation. That distinction is made before anybody has spoken.
It is also the only item in the list that gets used again. Bags and pens go once. A roller banner rolls up, goes in a car boot and comes back out at the next event, which for a group running a regular programme of activities is the cheapest per-appearance item they will buy.
If your budget only stretches to one branded thing, buy the banner.
Annie's rule for choosing merchandise
Asked what she would tell another organisation, Annie's answer was about intent rather than product:
Be really intentional with what you choose, it's more than just putting your logo on something.
That is the whole thing, and it is worth taking seriously from someone running a group on donated time. For Pink Sisters the merchandise had to carry an idea that people would recognise and want to be part of, which is a higher bar than brand visibility.
People loved the merch and what it stood for. The merch was a great conversation starter.
The conversation starter point is the practical one. At a stand, the hardest part is not persuading somebody, it is getting past the first three seconds. Something in your hand to offer changes the shape of that encounter, because a person taking a pen has already stopped walking.
They've created a sense of identity and belonging, not just during the events but beyond them.
Our guide to promotional products for charity events and fundraisers covers ordering on volunteer-run funds, and how to choose promotional products for an event covers matching a product to the people receiving it. You can see how a Visual Proof works before committing to anything.
Every product page shows its own price at the quantity you enter, its minimum order and its guaranteed delivery date, before you speak to anyone.
To see what is available, browse our exhibition and event giveaways, our printed pens or our charity and community merchandise.