What'cha Drinkin'? with Linda Henshall

Editor's note: Automated speech-to-text transcription, edited lightly for clarity.

Dan Quirk:

Hello, I'm Dan Quirk, VP, marketing here at Quirk’s Media and today we've got another edition of What’cha Drinkin’? Today I'm interviewing Linda Henshall. She is in charge of fundraising for the Marketing Research Benevolent Association and she is also the owner of the new fieldwork company. The Marketing Research Benevolent Association has been helping researchers for over 40 years. And after this interview, if you'd like to make a donation, please visit mrba.org.uk. Well, hello Linda. How are you today?

Linda Henshall:

I'm fine, thank you.

Dan Quirk:

You look all, you're all festive.

Linda Henshall:

Yeah, all ready for Christmas.

Dan Quirk:

Yes, me too. Me too. I have my Christmas jumper. Well, you call it a jumper. We call it a sweater. We do an ugly sweater competition every year in my family and this is my contribution this year to the ugly sweater competition. So I have to start out by asking you what are drinking today?

Linda Henshall:

It’s called Silent Paul Gin. It's the local group. There's a place in Gilford and they make it there. So yeah, it's very special. 

Dan Quirk:

Oh, I like that. It's kind of mysterious. It comes and goes. Oh, very nice. Well, next time I'm in London, I'll have to bring you some Minnesota gin. Gin seems to be the hot thing everywhere. The small breweries that are brewing up the gin, I guess. Do they brew it? Distill it? They distill it.

Linda Henshall:

Distill it, yeah. Yeah.

Dan Quirk:

Yes. Well, I have, today I'm drinking, it's only 10 in the morning our time. So today I have an apple spice tea which is great for the holidays. And then I have it in this mug from a coffee shop called Coffee, and it's in Palm Springs, California. It's one of my favorite places to visit because it's the desert. It's probably about well, about 24 degrees Celsius there right now or 74 degrees Fahrenheit. And instead I'm here in Minnesota where it's below freezing and going to get colder.

Linda Henshall:

Oh, yes.

Dan Quirk:

Yes, we have. We're known for our terrible winters here. Well, I wanted to ask you so you are in charge of fundraising for the Market Research Benevolent Association and I wanted you to tell me a little bit more about what the Market Research Benevolent Association does, and then what you did during the pandemic, given that.

Linda Henshall:

Well, I mean, it started off, the year started off quite normally and we had our usual fundraiser, which was the auction. And about halfway through it, that's when COVID-19 really hit, started to hit. So unfortunately, our fundraising wasn't as good this year because we were selling things that probably weren't going to happen. ESOMAR didn't happen, people bought meals and things that haven't happened yet. But anyway, we still managed to raise quite a lot of money, which was needed because then in March we got about 50 times more applications for help than we do normally. But luckily, the government took over and they put interviewers on furlough.

Dan Quirk:

Oh, they did? Okay. So when you raise money, normally that money goes to people like interviewers and others in the field that are having a hard time. Is that correct?

Linda Henshall:

Yeah, anybody that worked, anybody that's been in market research for more than two years. Let's say furlough help.

Dan Quirk:

Is that only in the U.K. then?

Linda Henshall:

Only the U.K., yeah. Yeah, yeah.

Dan Quirk:

Interesting. So in a normal year then, what sort of fundraising activities do you do?

Linda Henshall:

Well, this year we've, I think we've got a sweater. We don't call it an ugly sweater, but we've got a Christmas jumper competition going on. It's not so much a competition, we just advertise it and people come and show what they're wearing. And then you have to in encourage your friends to do the same. So you say to them here's my jumper, now five of you have got to do the same. So we're doing that. We just had a Christmas quiz, which very kindly you've sponsored by giving us a lovely prize, and that was great fun. So there's all sorts of things happening, but it's not a normal year for us. Things have changed this year. People aren't going anywhere, so you can't actually use any of the prizes that you've got unless they're online. That's the thing.

Dan Quirk:

Right. So when it's not a pandemic, what sort of aid do you give people? Do you have any examples of situations that you've given aid for?

Linda Henshall:

Yeah, we have people, sometimes it's the child of the applicant, applicant who is terminally ill, and we've helped them sort of be able to have holidays and things. We pay people's rent when they're in trouble or their mortgages. We help them that way. If they need food, we send food by sending a package. There are all sorts of things we do. Sometimes it's the things that people get most concerned about that we need because sometimes it's the worry that causes them more aggravation than the actual cost of what it is. And this year, one of our corporate patrons has sponsored hampers for all the people we've helped this year. So everybody we've helped this year has had a hamper and that was from criteria research. And they don't actually send them out, the MRBA send them out. And it's been a great help this year.

Dan Quirk:

Yeah. I think one of the things is jobs like interviewers don't often pay a huge amount of money. So when people get into some sort of financial trouble, whether it's through sickness or needing to care for a child or any other thing or where, if there's a period where they can't work, I think this sort of charity is very, very important, whether it's a pandemic or not. I know we don't have anything like it in the United States, but we have loved partnering with you on these things because we think it's really important that the industry takes care of one another.

Linda Henshall:

Well, what we do, if there's somebody who's in such dire straits that we know that they'd never be able to pay the loan back, we give them a grant and then they don't have to pay that back ever. But other people quite like the idea of a loan, and it's only a very small payment, but most of the people we have do actually pay it back eventually and then they feel free to come and ask again if they need help again. And people do quite often come back to us.

Dan Quirk:

Wow. That's wonderful. Well, I think on that note, I'm going to wrap it up here. I want to wish everybody as well as you, Linda, a very happy Christmas and a happy New Year. Let's hope 2021 is a little bit better for everyone. A little smoother, a little bit easier to plan. So anyway, Merry Christmas everyone, and cheers. 

Linda Henshall:

Merry Christmas. Across the pond. Goodbye.

Dan Quirk:

Bye.