Two people died in August and September while taking part in charity cycle rides.

o Kris Cook, 36, suffered a heart attack and died cycling up a steep hill in Guildford, Surrey, during the Prudential RideLondon 100 race in August, to raise money for hospices.

o Anna Roots, 34, a top rower, was hit and killed by a lorry in Sutherland, Scotland, during a Lands End to John O’Groats charity cycle ride in September, to raise money for leukaemia and lymphoma research.

Calls have been made for more responsible government regulation of Fixed Odds Betting Terminals (FOTBs) in bookmakers shops, machines offering touch-screen casino games with the opportunity for gamblers to pump in up to £18,000 per hour.

The FOTBs, the “crack cocaine of gambling”, are thought by charities to be eight times as addictive as any other form of gambling, with two thirds of gamblers only stopping when all their money is gone, an aspect that generates more than £50 billion staked per annum. Like games in casinos the profit, the loss to the gambler, is just a few per cent per game, with total profits per gambler being reliant on them being hooked for long periods of play – the longer they stay the more they lose.

It has been noted that high concentrations of betting shops, and the FOTBs, are in the poorer areas of the country, and the not-for-profit Campaign for Fairer Gambling has estimated that more than £700 million was staked on FOTBs in just 178 betting shops in Birmingham in 2013.

Citizens of Bedford have been the most generous to the donation website Justgiving.com, with a total of £1,145,967 from a population of 79,150, an average of £14.48 per person. Figures per head of population for the rest of the top ten UK towns were:

Cambridge £11.39
Reading £10.74
High Wycombe £10.71
Brentwood £10.07
Woking £9.25
Aberdeen £8.49
Cheltenham £8.42
Watford £7.86
Bristol £6.97

Some French chefs are campaigning to legalise the hunting and eating of the endangered ortolan songbird, a tiny bunting weighing less than an ounce that is force-fed, killed by drowning in armagnac, and then cooked and eaten nearly whole, with the legs and feet, other hard bits, and the feathers removed so that rich gourmet diners don’t choke on their delicacy.

The French government banned the practise in 1999, imposing a fine of up to £4,000 for anyone caught trapping the birds, or restaurants serving them, and imprisonment for re-offenders. According to Birdlife International this hasn’t stopped a lucrative black market, with up to 30,000 birds a year being illegally taken and sold for more than £100 each, resulting in a reduction in numbers of 90% since 1980.

The chefs say that lifting the ban would stop the black market and bring prices down, but the UK’s Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) argues that the move would simply increase the slaughter.

Charities wanting to share knowledge, ideas, news or advice with their supporters are offered a new hosting and consultancy service for online seminars.

“Webinars” can be picked up on a PC, laptop, iPad or other mobile device, anywhere with internet access.

nfpwebinars.co.uk

Child abuse continues to be deservedly high priority in the public awareness.

The exposure of Sir Jimmy Savile and the jailing of Max Cliifford and Rolf Harris has been followed by concerns of a Whitehall cover-up of political paedophiles, with the late Liberal MP for Rochdale Sir Cyril Smith named, amid allegations that he had put pressure on the BBC not to “muck-rake” the private lives of politicians, at the risk of losing parliamentary support for its enforced licence fee. Continue reading →

An Assisted Dying Bill proposed by Lord Falconer has generated heated and passionate debate in Parliament.

If the Bill became law it would allow doctors to prescribe a lethal dose of medication to terminally ill patients judged to have less than six months to live, an aspect that some opponents say could put pressure on the dying to end their lives and cease to be a burden to those who have to look after them. Other opponents say that assisting the terminally ill to die would be colluding in the idea that someone coming to the end of their life is of no further value.

Supporters of the change in the law say that those in unbearable pain should be allowed to hasten their end, reduce their suffering and die with dignity. And that the sanctity of life should include the right to death.

New charities that duplicate existing ones risk wasting donations.

This is the view of the outgoing chief executive of the Charity Commission, Sam Younger, who points out that there were 6,661 applications for new charities in the 2013/2014 financial year, a 16% rise on the previous year.

One example of common duplication, says Younger, is bereaved military families who set up a charity in memory of their loved ones, when it would be wiser to appreciate that wanting passionately to be doing something to help and the reality of effectively running a registered charity are very different. Better, he says, to pause and consider working with existing organisations. Continue reading →

Aids and HIV charities have backed calls to decriminalise drug use in the UK, to reduce the transmission of HIV and Aids among users.

They say that there is evidence from other countries that the move would not increase the use of drugs but would “dramatically reduce” the harm caused by the illegal taking of drugs, including HIV transmission.