Obimi CIC: Branded Tote Bags as Welcome Packs for a Wellbeing Event
Explore how branded tote bags enhanced Obimi CIC's wellbeing event welcome packs, improving organisation and attendee...
Explore how branded tote bags enhanced Obimi CIC's wellbeing event welcome packs, improving organisation and attendee experience.
Hotline Promotional Products sponsored 50 branded cotton tote bags for Obimi CIC's Pause and Reset wellbeing day, an event for parents and carers of children with special educational needs and disabilities. The bags were the welcome pack rather than a giveaway, holding wellbeing products, information and gifts from other sponsors. The event sold out.
| Name | Description |
|---|---|
| Client | Obimi CIC, a Community Interest Company supporting parents and carers of children with SEND |
| Sector | Community interest company, wellbeing and family support |
| Product | Branded cotton tote bags |
| Quantity | 50 |
| How it was funded | Hotline sponsorship |
| Event | Pause and Reset, a wellbeing day for SEND parents and carers |
| Attendance | Sold out. Attendees travelled from London and the surrounding area |
| Result | Used as welcome packs on the door, carried through the day, then kept for shopping, school meetings and appointments |
Who Obimi CIC are
Obimi is a Community Interest Company set up to support parents and carers of children with special educational needs and disabilities. It was founded on a mix of professional expertise and lived experience, and it works to reduce isolation and help families deal with the education, health and social care systems through wellbeing events, workshops, advocacy and peer support. Pause and Reset was built around a specific problem. Parents caring for a child with SEND spend most of their time advocating for somebody else, and their own wellbeing tends to come last. The day existed to give them a few hours where it did not. It sold out.
Why the bag was the welcome pack rather than the giveaway
This is the distinction worth understanding, because it changes what you should buy. A giveaway bag is handed over at the end and its job is to be seen afterwards. A welcome pack bag is handed over at the door and its job starts immediately: it holds everything the attendee is given, keeps it together through the day, and gets it home in one piece. Obimi went the second route. Every attendee was handed a bag on arrival with the day's materials already inside.
The sponsorship made a real difference. The branded tote bags transformed our welcome packs into something special and helped attendees feel genuinely appreciated from the moment they arrived.
That is Helen from Obimi, and the phrase that matters is "from the moment they arrived". The alternative was handing people a stack of loose paper at a desk. The first minute of an event sets what people expect from the rest of it, and a bag with things already in it does more work in that minute than the same bag handed over empty.
What went in the bag
The Pause and Reset packs held wellbeing products, information packs, practical resources and gifts donated by other sponsors.
That mix is a reasonable template for most welcome packs, and the logic behind it applies whether you are running a wellbeing day or a one-day conference:
- One thing they use during the day. Something to write with, something to drink from, or the programme itself.
- One thing that carries the information. The resources, the agenda, the contacts. This is the part people actually came for.
- One thing to take home. The item with a life after the event, which is usually the bag itself.
- Anything your sponsors or partners have contributed, which is easier to present well when there is a bag to put it in. The common failure is filling a bag with items that all do the same job. Four leaflets and a flyer is not a welcome pack, it is paper in a bag. If two things in your pack serve the same purpose, cut one and spend the difference on the bag.
Why the bag itself has to feel right
Helen described the bags as sturdy, spacious and professionally printed, and attendees told her they intended to keep using them.
That sounds like a small compliment and it is actually the whole game. A welcome pack bag is the first physical thing an attendee touches, and a thin bag with a stretched logo tells them something about the event before anyone has spoken to them. It is also the item most likely to be judged, because unlike a printed programme it has an obvious comparison: every other bag they own.
If your bags looked cheap last year, the fix is usually one of three things. A heavier fabric weight. A print sized properly for the panel rather than scaled up from a business card. Or a bag with a gusset, so it holds a shape instead of hanging flat. All three are visible in a Visual Proof before you order, which is the point of asking for one.
What the sponsorship actually did
Being straight about this: Obimi approached Hotline and we supplied the bags free of charge. The organisation is a Community Interest Company, not a registered charity, which is a distinction worth keeping accurate.
What sponsorship does for an organisation like Obimi is less about the money than the ceiling it removes. A volunteer-run wellbeing day on a tight budget can either have welcome packs or have something else, and sponsorship is often what decides which. The families attending get a better day for it, which is the only outcome that matters here.
If you are running a community event and merchandise is the thing you have cut from the budget, it is worth asking local suppliers before you assume the answer is no.
Our guide to promotional products for charity events and fundraisers covers ordering on limited 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 tote bags, our conference and delegate merchandise or our charity and community merchandise.