The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) has revealed an increase in the illegal poisoning of endangered birds of prey by gamekeepers, working on behalf of their landowner employers.

This is done to preserve the game birds to be shot for a profit to the landowner, and pleasure for the shooters, rather than taken by eagles, buzzards, hen harriers and kites, for food. Worst areas for the illegal killings are those with high numbers of shooting estates, such as North Yorks, West Mercia, Northumberland, Devon and Cornwall and Cumbria.

The RSPB wants to make the landowners legally responsible for the illegal actions of their gamekeepers, from which they profit.

An advertisement claiming that donations to an animal welfare charity would help British troops in Afghanistan has been banned by the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA)

The ad was placed by the Society for the Protection of Animals Abroad (SPANA) and argued that the help in looking after livestock it provided to rural farmers in Afghanistan helped to win the hearts and minds of the people, against the influence of the Taliban, and that this improvement in relations was of benefit to troops fighting the Taliban.

The ASA, in upholding the complaints argued that the ad was likely to mislead donors into believing that money they gave would directly assist British troops, something they could find no evidence for.

Sir Norman Wisdom, the successful screen comic who died recently aged 95, got his uniform for his unique eternal schoolboy character from a charity shop in Scarborough in the 1950’s.

This comprised a checked jacket three sizes too small for him with a checked peaked cap and almost matching tie, both worn askew, and was perfect for his brand of slapstick visual humour. The plots for his films featured him as the lovable idiot underdog who always triumphed over the better-off and got the girl.

According to an obituary in the Daily Telegraph his humour looks dated today, except in other countries where it is often revered as deliciously subversive.

The Prince of Wales is to move a number of his charities, some of which are paying high rents in expensive and fashionable parts of London, to cheaper offices in King’s Cross.

According to a report in the Daily Telegraph the centralisation, to a redevelopment of a railway goods yard, could save the Prince’s Charities more than £500,000,and help mitigate the reduction in income caused by quangos making grants to the charities being abolished, or suffering budget cuts.

When event organisers choose a venue the need for it to be unusual is becoming more important.

This is the conclusion of Mary Kay Eyerman, editor of charity publication The London and UK Datebook, who attended a focus group of organisers discussing what they looked for in a venue. Many were moving from hotels to museums, livery halls and even year-round marquees, providing something unusual and saving money in the process.

Also discussed was the benefit of working with one person at the venue from beginning to end, and the irritating issue of hidden extra charges, for such things as power points, and additional set-up time.

o The Digital Fundraising Conference takes place on 18th November 2010 .at the QE11 Conference Centre, Westminster, fees from £199 plus VAT www.civilsociety.co.uk/fundraisingconference

o The Charities and Associations Exhibition, and range of seminars, takes place on 22/23rd February 2011 at the Business Design Centre, Islington, admission free. www.conferencehouse.co.uk

An official from Milton Keynes council hid in a bush with a sound meter to try to prove that the PA system being used at a charity fundraising event was too loud.

The organisers of the charity bike ride advised the official that they were restricted to 82 decibels but that their own sound check showed that they were only operating at 60 decibels, but were still told by the anonymous official that they were causing a public nuisance, an aspect that caused the charity cyclists to abandon their after-ride party.

Despite the best efforts of Milton Keynes council the event raised £17,000 for Cancer Research UK.

Forty American billionaires, including Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, George Lucas and Michael Bloomberg, have pledged to give to charity at least half of their fortunes, thought to be worth around £100 billion. Most will go to world health.

Charitable giving totals 2.2% of Gross Domestic Product in the USA, compared with 1.3% in Britain.

Our Queen has been urged to use her 2012 diamond jubilee to persuade every member of the public to give one per cent of their income to charity, a move that would raise more than £4 billion.

Katie Piper, a former TV presenter and model who was badly disfigured in a horrific acid attack has started a new charity for burns victims.

Piper, 26, had acid thrown in her face in March 2008 by a thug, Stefan Sylvestre, hired by a jealous ex-boyfriend, Daniel Lynch. Both men are now serving life sentences.

The Katie Piper Foundation will lobby for more of the groundbreaking plastic surgery that surgeons used to save Piper’s face to be made more widely available, and for people to accept that disfigured people are still people.