We didn’t send our customers Christmas cards this year.  There were a few reasons for this.  Firstly, we have a lot of customers (past and present customers would run into the thousands) and it would take a long time to write a card to each of them.  We’re not crazy about those professionally printed cards sent out by dentists or solicitors, complete with company logo.  That just feels like a piece of marketing material, and no one really wants an advert adorning their mantlepiece.  Then there is the use of the earth’s resources in order to make the cards: cardstock, printing inks and glitter all have to come from somewhere, you know.  We really try to keep our environmental footprint as small as possible.

We do send cards to family and close friends, but we decided we could do something more meaningful with the money we might otherwise spend on Christmas cards for our customers.  We considered whether we might give our students a little treat, such as a selection box or similar but we really felt that a) children are overwhelmed with treats at this time of year; b) not everyone celebrates Christmas and yet it’s everywhere in December – perhaps it’s not appropriate for Better Tuition to join in with this, and c) we really feel that our lessons are such a treat that anything extra would be entirely superfluous!

Nevertheless, we decided that we really wanted to thank our customers: you are wonderful people and without your support (and your word-of-mouth recommendations), Better Tuition wouldn’t exist.  We are very lucky to teach such lovely, hardworking children. They always make us smile.  With this in mind it wasn’t hard to find a place for our donation.  Smile Train offers corrective surgery to children in developing countries suffering from cleft palates.  Without surgery, these children cannot smile, leading to shame and social isolation as well as speech impairments, so Smile Train literally puts a smile on children’s faces.

Happy New Year from all the team at Better Tuition.

Better Tuition has made a donation of £150 to Smile Train as a way of marking this fresh new year and of wishing our customers, past and present, a Happy New Year and wonderful things for 2015.  Keep smiling, and we’ll see some of you next week, as our spring term begins on Monday, 5th January.  You can find out how to get involved with Smile Train here on their website.