Monthly Hugs update
- By Chloe Tingle
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- 18 Sep, 2017
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Hi everyone,
Today we have an announcement to make. We have decided to put our Monthly Hugs subscription service on pause. We absolutely love Monthly Hugs and have put a lot of time and energy into making it happen, so this hasn’t been an easy decision and it’s taken us some time to reach.
The reason for the pause is that even though we have had a really amazing reception to the boxes, a lot of positive feedback and even featuring in the Independent’s top 10 self-care subscription boxes, we’ve had less subscribers than we expected following the launch.
Given that we are such a small organisation with limited resources, we’ve come to this difficult decision to put Monthly Hugs on pause for the next few months until we can source significant investment or a partner which can support us to cover the overheads of building a larger customer base.
Nonetheless we would like to take this opportunity to thank each and every one of you who has supported us during the Crowdfunder in June and beyond to get Monthly Hugs of the ground, it has been a pleasure and we are so pleased with our Endless Summer box that went out in August.
This journey has given us invaluable experience and the resources we so desperately needed to carry on with our Tackling Period Poverty project working with low-income vulnerable women right here in Bristol, which we couldn’t have done without the support of Bristol Green Capital.
We would like to emphasise that funds have been used exactly as allocated through the Crowdfunder, particularly those that were for workshops and donating boxes to the vulnerable women we work with. With this, we have already managed to conduct 3 workshops, 2 period clinics and give out 9 boxes, each with a reusable sanitary product.
We are solely putting Monthly Hugs on hold for the next few months due to the huge amount of resource needed to create each month’s Monthly Hug. As a small not-for-profit with only a few members of staff, we have taken the strategic decision to put our energy into forwarding the Tackling Period Poverty Programme for the time being until funding or a partner is established for Monthly Hugs.
If you love the Monthly Hugs idea and would be interested in becoming a subscriber in the future after we re-launch please submit your email here. Please note this is non-binding and your details will not be shared with any third-parties.
The more people we have register their interest the more likely we are to be successful in our search for external funding and/or a partner to take on Monthly Hugs.
Once again, we would like to thank you for all of your support and we are really sorry that we can’t keep Monthly Hugs going at the moment, but we promise we will do everything we can to get it up and running again in the near future.
If you have any comments, concerns, questions or feedback please get in touch with Chloe.
Lots of love,
NMT Team x
WOW Women of the World festivals have been popping up across the world, if you get the chance to go along to one we would strongly recommend it.
WOW – Women of the World festival celebrates women and girls, and looks at the obstacles that stop them from achieving their potential.
Around the world, individuals and communities are insisting on the simple proposition that women and girls must have equal rights and asking the question: why is gender equality taking so long?
Southbank Centre's WOW – Women of the World festival is a global network of festivals which provides a platform for celebrating what has been achieved, and exploring all the ways we can change the world for the better.
What’s not to love?
Our Founder, Chloe, and her Mum Angela went along to represent No More Taboo with a stall across the two days. Here’s her highlights:
“Although we didn’t get much time to take in all the discussions as we were kept busy wo-manning the stall (thanks Mum for helping out)! We had some great discussions around gender, equality, inclusivity and of course periods with new customers, supporters, other panellists and some old friends who came to see us.
In fact, we were really pleased to catch up with Plan International UK who were opening the festival with a discussion about Period Activism exactly one year on since the launch of our #BreaktheBarriers research and Period Poverty Conference that we ran in collaboration with Plan.
On the first weekend of September, No More Taboo set up shop at Lush Cribbs Causeway for their Charity Pot weekend.
The Lush Charity Pot is a wonderfully creamy shea-butter hand lotion where all the sales money (excluding VAT) goes towards a chosen charity or non-for-profit. This scheme is designed to help boost grass-roots, small and local organisations, like ourselves, financially so that we can continue to do the work we do such as our Tackling Period Poverty programme.
As we were Lush’s chosen organisation for the weekend of the 1-2 September, one of our volunteers, Iloni, and one of our advisors, Carolyn, went along to wo-man the (suitably Lush-styled aesthetic) stall that Lush had kindly provided for us. We took along a range of our products, stacks of leaflets and information as well as our enthusiasm for talking about all things to do with periods.
Over the weekend, we sold over £200’s worth of stock with Ruby Cups and Honour Your Flow re-usable pads proving most popular with Lush customers. On top of this, Lush sold so many of their Charity Pots that £340.60 was raised for No More Taboo – which was amazing!
However exciting the money side of things were with this event, what I personally took away as being the real highlight of the weekend was the number and nature of conversations we shared with customers.
Mothers and daughters came and chatted to us about how they agreed it was so important to use re-usable products for personal and financial reasons as well as for the planet’s sake. Boyfriends accompanied their other halves as they prodded and probed the range of menstrual cups on display. Older women commented on how it’s such a relief to be able to talk about menstruation in public and with people you’ve only just met. They regaled of a time when periods were even more hush-hush and celebrated with us out mission of there being No More Taboo.
We would like to thank Lush Cribbs Causeway for being such wonderful hosts, encouraging every customer that came through their doors to consider buying the Charity Pot or simply to chat with us. Each member of their staff team was incredibly warm and so keen to find out more about what we do. On behalf of all of us at No More Taboo, thank you.
For more information, take a look at their website: https://www1.uwe.ac.uk/whatson/biggreenweek.aspx
Read more here: https://www.wen.org.uk/environmenstrual-week-of-action/
