The work of the art charity, the Public Catalogue Foundation (PCF) is to go online, allowing everyone with access to the internet to enjoy all the oil paintings owned by the British taxpayer, most hardly ever seen.

The PCF is working with the BBC, which will host the massive online archive, to feature all the paintings on view in galleries but especially all those in storage or in buildings such as offices, hospitals, schools, embassies and municipal buildings.  This “hidden art” almost never seen by the taxpayer is thought to be up to 80% of the total of 200,000 works. Continue reading →

A recent piece in the Sunday Telegraph featured people who had totally changed their lives and included a top charity executive who is now a shepherdess.

Beate Kubitz was a £25,000 a year high-flier with Mental Health Media in London, a job she was apparently very good at.  However she found this was not the same as having a real passion for something.  Kubitz, a philosophy graduate, also found that city life delivered a range of “life destroying emotions such as anxiety about social hierarchy, envy and pride” as well as “using my car too much and buying too much packaged food to save time”. Continue reading →

Happiness is contagious, according to social network researchers, and spreads through social groups like an emotional virus.  (The Psychologist).

Using 12,000 interconnected people it was found that a person’s happiness level is influenced not only by that of immediate friends and relations but friends of friends, and their friends too, although closer proximity of happy people produced the strongest influence. Continue reading →

A “stag” fundraising luncheon promoted as such by The Lords’ Taverners disappointed some diners who noted the presence of women at the men-only events having told their own partners and girl friends they would be unable to take them.

According to Lords’ Taverners chief executive Matthew Pattern the women present at the event included the female head of fundraising and communications who had invited a number of important donors, as well as other female staff who would always be in attendance at men-only functions.

More than 50 free 45-50 minute seminars are being offered at this year’s charities and associations exhibition, CHASE, being held at the Business Design Centre, Islington, Tuesday 24th February and Wednesday 25th February.

There are seven streams of seminars available. Continue reading →

A range of 92 one-hour and two-hour seminars priced from £20 – £60 per delegate are offered at Charityfair, which takes place at Central Hall Westminster Wednesday June 24 and Thursday June 25.

In addition there are free sessions on campaigning, mentoring, finance and being a trustee as well as free book launches.

www.charityfair.org.uk

The Charity Law Conference takes place on Thursday May 7 at the Royal Society of Medicine, London.

Fees range from £189 to £475 per delegate depending on type of organisation and date booked. www.dsc.org.uk/cl

Those charities concerned with the victims of violence will be interested in a recent experiment which proved, once again, that a majority of people will inflict pain on others if encouraged to do so by an authority figure.

The experiment at Santa Clara University, California, which replicated generally another 1961 experiment at Yale University, had volunteers administering what they thought were increasingly painful electric shocks to people who failed memory tests.  In fact the “victims” were all actors who cried out in pain at the “shocks”. Continue reading →

The director of The Fair Project, a drugs charity educating youngsters about the dangers of drugs has been jailed for three years, for supplying drugs.  (thelondonpaper).

Karen Stott, (49) and her two sons Khan (24) and Vidal (22) from Camden sold ecstasy and cocaine to night clubbers in London who simply had to call a mobile telephone number to get a delivery within 30 minutes.  Police mounted a five month surveillance operation and on the same day that Karen Stott inadvertently sold drugs to an undercover police officer she visited a school to talk to children about the dangers.  Police claim the family made £250,000 over two years.

Stott’s son Vidal was also given a three year jail sentence and Khan got 27 months.  They all pleaded guilty to supplying cocaine.