Lammy Dodgers

From the Daily Mail

Critics round on MP David Lammy as Comic Relief suffers £8MILLION drop in Red Nose Day donations amid fears public was put off by his bitter 'white saviour' row with Stacey Dooley over Strictly star's trip to Africa

Comic Relief raised a total of £63million - compared to £71.3million in 2018

I don't think so. I think Lammy's an arse and I think most people recognised that in this case.

Here's the real problem

This year's Comic Relief's Red Nose Day show was watched by 600,000 fewer people than in 2017.

Some 5.6 million people tuned in to watch the star-studded telethon on BBC One last night, but last time round the biennial fund-raiser was watched by 6.2 million viewers.

6.2 million down to 5.6 million is a drop of around 10.7%. 71.3 down to 63 is a drop of around 13%. Not an exact correlation, but probably close enough. People are finding something entertaining to watch on a Friday night on Netflix rather than a bunch of old has-beens doing the equivalent of a company Xmas show.

Charity Parachuting

From Pubmed

All parachute injuries from two local parachute centres over a 5-year period were analysed. Of 174 patients with injuries of varying severity, 94% were first-time charity-parachutists. The injury rate in charity-parachutists was 11% at an average cost of 3751 Pounds per casualty. Sixty-three percent of casualties who were charity-parachutists required hospital admission, representing a serious injury rate of 7%, at an average cost of 5781 Pounds per patient. The amount raised per person for charity was 30 Pounds. Each pound raised for charity cost the NHS 13.75 Pounds in return. Parachuting for charity costs more money than it raises, carries a high risk of serious personal injury and places a significant burden on health resources.

It does have to be said that that isn't exactly the right figure as some of those people would do a parachute jump themselves, but are instead getting their friends to pay for it via a charity donation. But, making it free for them (as their friends and co-workers are paying for it) is more likely to have people doing it.

Listen from about 19 minutes in...

Here

Comments in the comments - should be fun.

MW adds: or read the related article here.

"The Dispossessed Fund: £1m to help charities fight gangs"

From The Evening Standard:

The Evening Standard's Dispossessed Fund has secured £1 million for charities tackling gangs and young Londoners at risk of anti-social or criminal behaviour…

The charities will now be able to invest in knives, pickaxe handles and stab proof vests, with fire arms for those who dare venture into the most violent gang territories.

Problem + problem = solution

Here's the Sally Army's Xmas 2013 TV advert:

Now, let me see if I can reduce the first two problems highlighted to a simple diagram, the solution of which must be obvious to a child of seven…

Charity Shops and Footfall

From the BBC

Charity shops boost local business, combat unemployment and even help tackle social isolation, according to a report by the think tank Demos.

The report says despite negative perceptions there is "no evidence" the shops cause "High Street decline".

Councils should "do more to support charity shops", the report adds.

The rising number of charity shops has led to calls to limit their numbers, but the report says the benefits they bring are "often unrecognised".

I've had a read of the Demos report, which, being Demos is full of terms like "social value" that should clue you in to the sort of people writing it. It includes quotes from charity shops and landlords about the benefits of charity shops, including the benefits to other shops, but they couldn't seem to find a non-charity shop owner who thought they were a good idea. It's real aim is to defend the dodging of business rates, despite the fact that charities already get tax and VAT relief.

Going back to Mark Wadworth's post about shopping centres and how the owners control the mix of shops, it's worth nothing that places like The Oracle, Cribbs Causeway and Central Milton Keynes don't have charity shops. They don't think that having an Oxfam shop in their centre is going to bring people in, or more accurately, that the people they bring in aren't going to be the people that the other shops in their centre want.

But that is a certain sort of shop, generally more middle- to upmarket ones.

The footfall that a charity shop is going to increase is the footfall of people on lower incomes. It's going to help shops like Poundland or CEX. And for that, I'm somewhat tickled because the sort of people who are most vocal about saving the High Street aren't just against boarded up High Streets, they want a gentrified High St full of small tasteful independent shops, and not the likes of Poundland or CEX.