Austrian millionaire Karl Rabeder, 47, is giving away his £3 million fortune to charity because it is not making him happy.

He has already sold six gliders valued at £350,000, as well as his profitable interior furnishings business, and is selling his lakeside villa near Insbruck and a farmhouse in Provence, together valued at over £2 million.

His objective is to have nothing left, and he told the Daily Telegraph “All the luxury and comsumerism is not real life. Money is counterproductive – it prevents happiness.” He intends to move to a bedsit in Insbruck, or a wooden mountain hut, surviving on £800 a month, and donate his fortune to a microcredit charity he set up in Latin America, from which he draws no salary, to offer small loans and business advice.

A charity poetry event to raise money for Haiti was organised by the present Poet Laureate, Carol Ann Duffy, at Westminster Central Hall, London in January.

Featuring more than 20 poets, Poetry Life for Haiti also featured PM Gordon Brown, who told the audience of the shipping of 5700 sheets of corrugated iron to provide shelters in Haiti. He also said that poetry could do what ordinary words alone could never do.

One example was by Roger McGough, “They Came Out Singing”, as below.

They came out singing, many of them. Pulled from the rubble, broken bodies from broken buildings. Coated in dust, red-eyed and bruised, crushed bones and severed limbs. Days of sepulchral darkness, nights choked with disbelief. First the smile, wide as thanksgiving, then the song, praise to the rescuers, and God for his mercy. Merci, merci.

Dementia, suffered by more than 820,000 people costs the economy an estimated £23 billion a year and has a relatively modest £50 million spent on research, against cancer costing £12 billion and having £590 million spent, and heart disease costing £8 billion and having £169 million spent on research.

These figures are from a report, Dementia 2010 produced by Oxford University and commissioned by the Alzheimer’s Research Trust which warns that dementia is the nation’s greatest health challenge, and one that will beat us unless we invest now.

After losing a court battle to keep a £2 million estate left to them in a will the RSPCA have been ordered to pay most of the £1.3 million legal costs.

Dr Christine Gill from Northallerton, Yorkshire, successfully overturned her parents will after the court agreed that her “domineering” father had bullied her mother into leaving their 287 acre farm to the charity.

People who want to grow their own fruit and vegetables but cannot afford to buy land are being offered the chance to become part time farmers by the National Trust under a “super allotments” scheme running at stately homes and other Trust properties.

Venues for the new organic farms so far include Killerton estate in Devon, where livestock such as chickens and cattle are also offered, Hatchlands Park near Guildford and the Wimpole estate in Cambridgeshire.

Claims by the Housing Minister, John Healey, that repossession of houses was “the best thing” for some of those unable to keep up their mortgage payments have been described as “grossly insensitive” by Shelter.

Last year there were 46,000 repossessions, the highest since 1995, and Shelter’s chief executive, Campbell Robb, commented “Behind each of these numbers is a heartbreaking story of a family losing their home and having to rebuild their lives” Continue reading →

A range of free seminars for charities are being presented at the CHASE exhibition, Business Design Centre, London on February 23/24.

Included are sessions on aspects of fundraising, trustees, IT, online services, finance and human resources.

www.conferencehouse.co.uk

The chief executive of Prince Harry’s Sentebale charity, Kedge Martin, has had some negative publicity in the gossip columns over remarks made to journalists.

Reportedly Ms Martin told journalists that she had deprived her two children of food for 24 hours to give them a taste of what it is like to be a starving African orphan. Of her own deprivation she commented that she had to go to Barbados several times last month to organise a polo match for the charity and added “I’ve been so often I’ve grown to love the island”

Later Ms Martin’s press spokesperson at Sentebale hurried to point out that the children were “over 10” when they had their enforced fast, and that Ms Martin’s comments were “off the cuff” and that she would “rather they stayed out of the press”, this arguably the best way of making sure they went in …

A list of the 20 most used office clichés has been published by the Brooke horse charity, following a survey of 3000 people. These are, in descending order:-

1. At the end of the day
2. What goes around comes around
3. It’s not rocket science
4. Thinking outside the box
5. Flogging a dead horse Continue reading →