Thursday 16 February 2012

Charitable donations

When taking a neighbour who suffers from a lack of mobility to Sainsburys in Witney, our local Air Ambulance which covers Berkshire, Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire were fund raising at the store entrance.


There are few charities I support - if you look at fakecharities.org you will understand why - however I willingly donated to this charity. From Wikipedia we learn that in the United Kingdom, the Scottish Ambulance Service operates two helicopters and two fixed-wing aircraft twenty-four hours per day. These represent the UK's only government-funded air ambulance service; whilst the service to London receives most of its funding through the National Health Service.


Thames Valley & Chiltern Air Ambulance Trust receives no funding from the government, lottery or the NHS. Now compare that with the amount of public money that is poured into all those fake charities and perhaps our government should have a rethink. More importantly, government 'donations' are made using public money, so should not an element of 'referism' enter the equation - ie, should we not be asked to which charity we wish our money to be given?


Just saying.....................

6 comments:

Oldrightie said...

I like it. The Air Ambulance is the charity for our Jubilee concert in June.

microdave said...

On the one hand is seems disgraceful that organisations like the air ambulance & the RNLI rely on charity, but on the other you will find both prefer to be independent from government control, as they can set their own agenda and targets.

WitteringsfromWitney said...

Or: Pleased about that......

md: but the two aims should not and need not clash - should they?

john in cheshire said...

WfW, you are so right. When I die, I plan to give absolutely NOTHING to any charity. Some of my friends, over years have told me of their encounters with these organisations that leave something less than a feeling of charity about them. If I choose to give any of my money to 'good causes' it will be on the basis that I have checked them out beforehand. Oxfam, WWF, for instance. By the way, is it a local glitsch but I try to google fake charities, and I can't go to any of the sites that come up? Is this sinister or just me?

john in cheshire said...

For clarification, Oxfam, and WWF will not be recipients of any of my money.

WitteringsfromWitney said...

jic: No idea re your query - will try myself and see what results I get.