run by you

Most friendly

Just joined? Say hi to Bob - who’s had two welcoming arms outstretched for, oh, around seven years. We’re amazed he’s not tired yet.

bobrobinson, to give him his full title, has his feet firmly planted in the welcome wagon. He’s someone who’s got time for every new gaffer who joins the community.

Take a look through his posts and you’ll see his kindness shines through in every conversation. Whether it’s helping people settle into life at giffgaff, or talking with an old friend he’s made through the community.

Most Collaborative

as7861 lives and breaths the ‘run by you’ ethos. In the time he’s been part of the community he’s done his best to give back as much as he’s gotten.

Everything Amer does in the community involves working with other members to bring out their best and makes community members’ efforts and ideas a reality. He does all he can to make a difference. What a guy!

To work with as7861 is to work with everyone who’s worked with him in the past. He generously shares and spreads wisdom and knowledge around the community for the benefit of every member.

Most helpful

If you’ve spent any time helping out members in the Help and Support forum, you’ll know harrrrrry. He’s always there to lend a hand with particularly tricky issues.

But if you leave the Help section, you’ll see harrrrrry’s brand of philanthropy elsewhere too. He knows that the best place to give help is where people are asking for it and will seek out problems to solve no matter where they are in the community.

No problem is too big or small for him. He will always think about how people might need the same help in future, and sets up ways to make sure they find the answers they need.

It doesn’t stop there. You will also find his work on the Knowledge Base, in the articles he has co-written with staff and other members.

And last but not least, the help he’s given in testing new features for the community has been invaluable to members who use it as well.

Most creative

willp789 has been behind some of the most widely-read writing on the giffgaff site, both on the blog and on the community. He’s the driving force behind the current edition of the gaff, the weekly community-run newsletter, Will edits and oversees what gets showcased to other members as the best of the community.

His infectious enthusiasm gets carried over to each of his contributors. Not only that, but his blog posts and videos help bring giffgaff to new audiences. His positivity helps potential new members understand what giffgaff is all about.

Most knowledgeable

Need some knowledge? The community’s own oracle, figment_uk, will almost certainly be able to help. In our nominations, members said he was their go-to-guy whenever they had a question. And what’s more, when they see a response of his in a thread, they feel relieved to know he’s around, on top of things as usual.

Thankfully, he doesn’t keep all the wisdom to himself, he’s willing to share it whenever it’s needed, no matter the topic, creating little oracles in his wake wherever he goes on the community.

Rising Star

Every now and again, a giffgaffer steps up and out of their comfort zone, to really try and make a difference to giffgaff and other members’ lives. Enter ijustcantdoit, stage left.

They have been a giffgaffer for a few years and in recent months ijustcantdoit has, in fact, done it, taking part in focused discussion groups about specific areas of giffgaff and the community. This helps with shaping existing initiatives like giffgaff Labs, as well as forging new ground with the giffgaff gameplan team.

In the nominations, members were particularly impressed with ijustcantdoit’s eagerness to take on new challenges and their positive attitude towards collaborating with others - truly a giffgaffer to watch.

Big thinker

blackfive460 is a rare breed: someone who sees something, and not only thinks ‘this can be better’, but actively takes part in making the change happen.

He’s someone who not only shares his opinion and expertise in a reasoned and constructive way, but also brings those traits out in others. If you see blackfive460 in a conversation, he’ll no doubt be bringing his unique perspective to the topic and helping shape its focus.

No wonder, then, that the community has awarded him the Big Thinker award, a quality the best giffgaffers possess, and blackfive460 has it in spades.

Lifetime achievement

It’s hard to pick an area of the community that woodyuk hasn’t been involved in. Right from the word go, woody has been giving back to his fellow giffgaffers, and hasn’t let up for over seven years.

From helping individuals with an issue that needs a quick fix to systemic and wide-ranging improvements to giffgaff, woodyuk puts giffgaffers first and is there for them through thick and thin.

The Lifetime Achievement award is for people who members see as the foundation of giffgaff, people without whom our community would be very different. woodyuk is not only one of these people, he’s the person these people look up to.

Going above and beyond

We love it when a member goes the extra mile. And that’s just what community member, cim did. They created a microsite. It has a video, ringtones and other snazzy bits and bobs to download. We were a major fan of the video. Yes we do giffgaff.

Our members have the best answer

We love a bit of dedication and passion when it comes to our members, helping other members on the community.

Recruiting on another level

July was the biggest month for new joiners in giffgaff history. With 31% of new joiners coming from the Super Recruiter programme.

Magnificient members go underground

We’ve got WiFi on the London Underground since around the middle of 2017.

The power to cancel

Everyone loves it when they are in control. And that’s just what we did.

An evening of TV

We all love watching a bit of TV when we get home. And with our E4 sponsorship, we were able to watch great shows with our members.

Come and join us

2017 set new challenges, and we wanted our next brand campaign to reach new heights. Welcome, ‘The big swim.’ One of our members, Ben, helped us on the creative for the campaign. It was nice to see that he was a giffgaff member as it made us want to work with him even more.

New year new phones

It’s the start of a fresh year, and that can only mean one thing: Mobile World Congress (MWC) is just around the corner.

Lifetime Achievement Award

“He’s the linchpin of help. He offers great personalised help. He sets the standard to what makes a brilliant helpful post and has received a lot of respect from his fellow members.” - Community Team

The Bright Spark

“As7861 has been a true Labs Pioneer, helping us flag up duplicates, organise ideas and getting very hands on and extremely enthusiastic about wanting to make it better. He’s always up for lending me a helping hand, as well as recognising others efforts, even when the chips are down. He’s a natural problem solver and goes the extra mile each and every time.” - Community team

The Savvy Sage

“He’s super friendly and has gone above and beyond with every task he takes on - whether it’s helping members on the community or collaborating with staff to improve the knowledge base. He is passionate about helping people and has provided some unique and practical solutions for a lot of members.” - Community team

The Creative Genius

“Having worked with Mitchell on the gaff and on other projects this year within the community. I have been very impressed with his approach and positive attitude in which he goes about creating his content. Always looking to take it one step further in creating a better read and interesting content for members to read. Even his tutorial videos. He is a very clever young man and I think he deserves this award.” - Community member

Hot from the press

misswotsit is one of the most active community members. And, when asked to join the working from home Educator team, she jumped at the chance

No place like home

We wouldn’t be where we are today without our members and we really believe that, together, anything is possible.

Who's a giffgaff member?

We always try and get our members involved in all sorts of weird and wonderful things we do. This even extends to giffgaff ads.

The sky's the limit

Our members love helping us improve. Their involvement was particularly important when

Helping around the clock

The flexibility of some of our members is truly a thing to witness. For instance, i_am_sy doesn’t normally help on our social channels - but when we had a website outage, Sy started answering questions and directed a few puzzled members towards a thread on the community.

Marvellous mates

We’re always trying to make life easier for our community.This is why we implemented this wonderful idea and rounded up a collection of finest members and buddied them up with new joiners. Known as Joining Buddies, they help new members bed in.

Lifetime Achievement Award

“Endorphin is a true ninja and seems to be involved in all parts of the forum. Sometimes thinking about Community you will automatically think of endorphin, that is a fact. He went beyond any expectations by magically juggling top help for members, welcoming newcomers, participating in discussions about how we can improve, and still finding time to have wonderful chatty conversations with all of us. Hats off to you!” - Community Team

Notable Newbie

“Polowoman is one of the loveliest newcomers I’ve come across on the giffgaff forums in a very long time. She is very friendly, very chirpy, and a delight to chat to. She spends much of her time networking on the forum, but most notably is her contribution to the creative writing competitions (she absolutely loves to write), and her PMs to many giffgaff members with little bits and bobs from her life. She always manages to cheer you up, and her positivity is endless!” - Community member

The Host

“Brulaw is always first on the scene to welcome new members to the community. Hes such a positive force of nature, you will always see him around, to brighten up everyone’s day with the banners he’s created which instantly puts a smile on our faces.” - Community team

General of Discussion

“Joining in 2011 long time member Baz is seen almost everywhere, whether it’s a cheery meme to brighten peoples day or chipping in Contribute with construction comments and for also creating the Gafftas.” - Community member

“The voice of reason and harmony in some tougher conversations on the community - patient, respectful and friendly.” - Community team

Most "Invested" Member

“She is always writing new threads in the money board keeping us all up to date with great deals. She did giffgaff money even before we had it. That says it all.” - Community member

Professor Lightbulb

“My vote is for kathleen414 for so many great ideas especially talking on the unlimited data issue that has been changed due to her efforts.” - Community member

Knowledge Ninja

“This member’s attention for details is amazing. He will make sure that everything is to the T specially when it comes to Service Issues. His determination to be on top of things that affect our wider member base is a real asset to giffgaff. He really is a vital part of the team and has a great sense of humour even though he does not show it all the time.” - Community team

Social Sensei

“Pinkcalculator goes out of her way on Facebook to help people there. She is always polite, friendly and gives out good help. She does everything she can to help.” Community member

Help Hero

“Essie112mm is the Queen of help. She’s offers the best advice and always takes the time to make the member needing help feel welcome and at home. She has the same determination to get to the root cause of a members problem. Meticulously thorough in her posting, and exceptionally diligent in her pursuit of the correct answers being set as best answers, so that search results yield the best possible information for members.” - Community member

Creative Champion

“He gets involved in a wide range of projects, and picks up on anything happening in the community to create fun content and videos to supplement it, like his video for the geocaching competition. An absolute giffgaff legend, marvellous!” - Community Member

Friendly Flyer

“He’s always there on the forums, putting up saving ideas for students, welcoming people, never really has a bad word against anyone, getting involved, making the forums a cheerier place, just a generally genuine nice guy always willing to help, support and make members experiences a nice one. Hats off to Mark for just being Mark!” - Community Member

Our 600th idea

It turns out our members love a good scare. We asked them what frightens them the most and received 270 responses.

House of real fears

It turns out our members love a good scare. We asked them what frightens them the most and received 270 responses.

The 1 million minute man

Helping people can give us a warm glow inside, so imagine how woodyuk felt when he hit the 1 million minute mark

The network won by you

That’s right. giffgaff won the Which? award for Best Telecom Provider of the Year 2015.

The network run by its members

giffgaff was being noticed for the radical way we approach mobile. With the press giving us the title: “giffgaff, the ‘bonkers’ mobile network, proves that the crowd can run your business for you.”

Hey you, get involved

We love a bit of collaboration, so when we launched our ‘Hey you’ campaign back in 2015, we thought to ourselves: we’ve got to get a member involved. And so we did.

Cook up something good in Labs

The community are constantly coming up with creative ideas to leave their legacy and make giffgaff even greater. We launched Labs which made it easier for members to chat about existing ideas and pitch new ones.

Getting a mobile take on the world

One of the most important events in the phone and tech industry: the Mobile World Congress, is an important fixture in our annual calendar. We like to send at least one of our members along to pick up on all the hot news. In 2015, it was wsjudd who wrote a brilliant blog about his experience.

Lifetime Achievement Award

“As soon as his name came up as a nominee, practically everyone here at giffgaff HQ had a story to tell or a favourite ‘flaxvert moment’ to share. (What was mine you ask? His voice. Seriously flax, you need to work in radio and start and end every show with ‘Marvellous’.)

The list is practically endless and anyone who has been in contact with flaxvert will immediately know why he deserves it. If it comes to pouring buckets of cold water on your head at a moments notice, putting together a guide on how to cook up some gruesome grub for Halloween or just some advice on how to use the community, flax (and his ever-present sidekick miniflax) is the man for the job. Marvellous.” - Community team

Most Welcoming

“Every time I open up a thread in the welcome and join forum, nerakb is usually the first to have welcomed new members. She helps point members in the right direction when they need help and always does that little bit extra to be friendly and extremely welcoming to those new to gg and/or new to the forums.” - Community member

Innovator of the Year

“when it comes to idea, bertiebat is perhaps the most imaginative yet practical member to contribute to new ideas. When she posts her own new ideas you can tell she goes to great lengths to explain herself and the idea thoroughly. Not only that she also encourages other members to expand on their ideas making her a great asset to the ideas board.” Community team

Newcomer of the Year

“I’ve voted for asciimotog because unlike most new, ascii’s been somewhat of a breath of fresh air, giving members non-generic and helpful posts, and is a member I myself look up to. Add to the fact ascii’s still a very active all-round member of the community, again, a lot of new users have a spurt of posts and then vanish, even a young blood like myself has seen names come and go, and I’m not even a year in. I can safely say I’ll be around the community for a long time to come, and I hope ascii will be too, enjoy seeing them about and reading their posts, also learn a thing or two, too.” - Community member

Knowledge Master

“As one of the 2 Knowledge Base publishers, his role as a member within the community is vital, as a conduit between members editing the Knowledge Base and giff-staffers maintaining it. He communicates well with KB editors, and publishes edits promptly.” - Community member

Social Rockstar

“She is the only member I’m aware of that dedicates a considerable amount of time to answering giffgaffers’ queries on Facebook, taking time away from the community forum to help those who may not (yet?) be part of the community. But she still takes time to come back and liaise with the Community Team on some of the issues and feedback she encounters on social media, so that these people’s views are also represented.” - Community member

Helper of the Year

“Sloz is the bees knees when it comes to giving the best quality help to each individual member. The fact he returns to the thread a number of times after he has posted to make sure each member is satisfied and has had their problem solved is why he deserves this award.” - Community team

Unite-er

“The perfect example of this would have to be the way she has brought the community together to start (or at least provide a significant contribution towards) a major consultation on the Contribute board, about the future of the Social: General Discussion board. She has tried hard to remain neutral with her questioning and her responses to the feedback she has received, despite having her own personal views (as anyone would), proving just as welcoming towards members who offer what would be opposing views to her own as she is to those who would agree with her. She took the initiative on an issue that was close to her heart and she felt needed addressing, and instead of just moaning about this, she has positively influenced the future direction of the board in a way that I can see the Community Team has greatly appreciated.” - Community member

She wrote about her award here: https://community.giffgaff.com/t5/General-Discussion/giffgaff-Visited-My-House-and-a-GAFFTA/td-p/15458524

Most Creative

“I could have ticked a lot of the categories for this member because he’s everywhere, helping new members with their queries, contributing to new ideas, and bringing loads of topics to discuss about in Social. He’s creative whereever he goes. The one thread that stands out is his ‘Need a sim?’ thread in Welcome and join. Such a creative and useful idea, he must have also helped hundreds of members out.” - Community team

Most Friendly

“Mark is certainly one of the most friendly members across the community, a true gent. Although he’s often over in the help section helping members solve their problems, I know him best through social general. You’ll often find him in many threads chatting away, and bringing a smile on members faces with his animated images, whether to congratulate them on a achievement within the community or a birthday wish. Mark as been arranging a trip to Blackpool open to all within the community in the hope of bringing members together and to get to know each other a little better in reality as well as online.” - Community member

giffgaff legends make a riot

We teamed up with Riot and invited a bunch of plucky members to divide into teams for a game of League of Legends (that’s the online multiplayer battle game, for you non-gamers out there). The tournament lasted six weeks and even helped a few members become professionals in the eSports industry.

Rewarding quality and support

We wouldn’t be where we are today without our members’ magnificent help and support.

Home is where the help is

Our agents help out members who are having a few problems that the community can’t solve

Who's the boss?

We really do like our members to be in control. In fact, in 2014 for one of our campaigns

Going mobile

We’re a social bunch and love to attend events like the Mobile World Congress, which happens to be the biggest event in the phone and tech industry. In 2014, we sent along member marktiddy who gave us the inside scoop on everything phone-related in handy-to-read, text-based format.

Gaming for charity

Our members don’t just like to help giffgaff, they’re an altruistic bunch who also love to give as well. Gameblast is a charity event where people play video games for 24 hours to raise money for Special Effect, who create phenomenal tech for disabled kids to enjoy playing the video games they love. In 2014, misswotsit and her husband - mattgregg545 - got together and helped raise £306 for the charity.

500 and counting

We’re all about new ideas. Like oxygen or lemon meringue, we just can’t get enough of them

Lifetime Achievement Award

“There’s only one person this award can go to really. Our 1 million minute man. He was the first member to meet 1000 accepted solutions, and he’s an outstanding role model. He’s friendly and his nature is fantastic. His posts are always very insightful and he’s just a great guy.” - Community team

Most Recruited

“There’s a secret to recruiting the most members to giffgaff and the award can only go to one person. And that is Khairul. Congratulations.” - Community Team

Most Creative

“Whether it’s videos, photos or knitted phone socks, zoe jumps into every challenge and every opportunity and get a little bit crafty and we absolutely love it. Thank you Zoe.” - Community team

Most Entertaining Thread

“Since January this year, Stephen has continuously posted ‘The gaff’ which gives an interesting look into the community by members for the members. Congratulations Stephen.” - Community team.

Most friendly

“She consistently helps on and off the forums and should be crowned our most friendly member. From teaching us how to cook to saving some money, her friendly nature makes everyone feel at home at giffgaff” - Community team

Never Sleeps

“At 12pm, 4pm, 10pm, 1am, 5am, whatever the time, shortylumber will be around to help answer your queries and keep the boards organised no matter what time of day. He’s a great contribution to the community.” - Community team

Tipster of the year

“Sloz is constantly being held as a role model to the community. He provides top quality help for all members who are looking for solutions.” - Community Team

Innovator of the year

“Her permanent suggestions, comments and experimentation do a great deal to inform and encourage us all.” - Community team

Helper of the Year

“Oldyorkie always goes out of his way to ensure his answers are helpful and understandable to the member asking. He will go back and make sure the member has received the best answer possible.” - Community Team

Newcomer of the year

“Since she’s arrived she’s gotten stuck into every board of the forum. She’s friendly, helpful and an all round good egg.” - Community team

Welcome to the gaff

In 2013, we hosted our first open house and welcomed members to the gaff for the first time.

From brilliant blogger to virtuoso vlogger

With over 242 blogs under her belt, shadylady is something of a giffgaff legend. She wrote her first one back in August 2013 about ‘Top 5 iOS Puzzle Games’. Since then she’s created her own website and started a YouTube channel as well. Nice one.

Work as an experience

Another mini-milestone was our very first work experience student, member zoeawesome, who stayed with us for two weeks and even made a little a video about her experiences too. Not only that, you’ll spot her in one of our adverts. Since stepping through the doors of our office, she has grown into quite the digital media queen.

Unlocking our forums

WoodyUK is something of a fabled name among gaffers. His 2013 post ‘Free Blackberry codes’ became the most kudosed (our version of a ‘like’) thread in our forums ever. In the first few months, he was providing around 1,000 unlock codes a month.

Just giving

It’s all great to give back, which is why we opened Justgiving pages for charities chosen by the generous people in our community. In the latest Payback period, £594.5 was raised by 177 members for WaterAid and GOSH.

Transferring your number

Way back in the foggy mists of time the giffgaff SIM was a little less flexible than it is today and didn’t come as a three-in-one package. This made number transfers trickier. Of course, there isn’t a problem that our members can’t solve.

He wants to be a millionaire

Some of our members really do go the extra mile when it comes to helping others in the community. Take darrenpainter for instance, since July 2010

giffgaff gets Windows

From little acorns spring mighty oaks. Ian created the first Windows version of the my giffgaff app in July of 2012, which now has over 550 reviews. It is now updated regularly with Ian working full time and leading a team of members as testers.

Everything is awesome

Among many other wonderful things, 2012 saw the start of video blogging at giffgaff.

Micro SIMs are go

In May 2012, we implemented yet another wonderful member idea: micro SIMs. Up until then, our marvellous members had been cutting individual SIMs down to size themselves.

What's going on 'round the gaff'

2nd April is a glorious day in the history of giffgaff, it’s the anniversary of the day ‘The gaff’ was launched.

Express SIM delivery

Can’t wait for your SIM? Check out the group wman2 set up to hand-deliver SIMs to members who urgently need one, all over the UK

A blogger became a freelance writer

zerodudex333 posted his first blog back in 2011, ‘How to build an App’ and has been blogging for us ever since

Coming to the UK

When giffgaff was growing, we needed to ship SIMs to our fellow friends who live abroad but we didn’t quite have the systems in place yet.

Clucking awesome

Our members’ marvellous ideas aren’t just limited to human life, occasionally we do our bit for the animal kingdom as well.

Cutting SIMs down to size

We pride ourselves on our agility

Knowledge is power

Did you know we’ve got our own version of Wikipedia? It’s known around these parts as the Knowledge Base. To kick things off, around 190 members helped us collate information on all things giffgaff. Since then it’s only grown and grown. Everything is written by our members - making it truly run by you.

App-solutely app-tastic

We couldn’t be a mobile network that didn’t have an app. That’s just crazy right? But for a while we actually were app-less.

Donating to a charity of your choice

We like to thank our members for all the hard work they do. And in June we had our first ever Payback payout. Payback is how we reward our members for lending a helping hand.

Leave a message, after the beep

Ever wondered what 443 stands for? Apart from being a handy number to check your voicemail, that is? It spells out gif, which was suggested by trick202. It makes it so much easier to remember, don’t you think?

It's in the bag

giffgaff’s first goodybag was on its way. And in true giffgaff style, we launched it with the help of our members, who gave us incredible feedback on pricing.

Superstars in the community

Some of the community founders made a name for themselves pretty quickly. Bigfatball, for instance, read all our T&Cs until he knew them both inside and out prior to our launch - now that’s commitment. Members like this quickly got themselves a well earned VIG (Very Important giffgaffer) badge.

The gaffer says 'Thank you'

giffgaff wouldn’t be where it is without its members. When we began our maiden voyage, our initial crew of members helped us find bugs and spread the good word that is giffgaff. Our captain, the gaffer himself, gave a special shout-out for their incredible contribution to the network.

Tools for the courageous

In the spirit of doing things differently and with giffgaff fresh on the market, we created a set of Tools for Hire allowing members to create epic videos.

giffgaff launched

Despite a few naysayers and people who still thought the world was flat, giffgaff was born on the 25th of November, 2009.

Community launched - woohoo

Like all good things, everything starts with a bang. And before giffgaff became the network it was today; we kicked off our journey with the launch of the community.