To disagree with Children in need

I agree with you and for other reasons too. I am surprised year after year that these events continue and shops like Asda continue to sell the crappy merchandise. Lots of schools don't seem to bother much and I thought hardly anyone watched terrestrial TV anymore (especially children).

Nice 👍 I hate kids too 🤣🤣

Think our attention spans being alot shorter has something to do with that.

Look at cricket, they've sped up a game (created in the slow paced Victorian era) by creating shorter formats of it inorder to stem the tide of falling viewer numbers.

We have so many options now that we want things much quicker than before, so less waiting around (for example, watching marathon telethons) is tolerated.

I always loved the old format though when Terry would come on around 12:30am and announce the total.

I think the answer could be to fundraise, show the kids using the resources, but without so much probing about "what happened", and without the pity/ inspiration porn narrative being used so much. That program, A Special School, managed to show disabled kids much like non-disabled kids might be shown on telly, i.e. without invading their privacy and publishing their medical details. As a viewer you could still very much appreciate what the school did for them.

Well since we're being honest; I don't watch or donate because

1. I don't watch terrestrial TV.
2. When I did, I thought CIN was a vomit-inducing pile of shite.
3. I don't like children.

If we taxed wealth properly we wouldn’t have to raise income tax. Those with the most, hoover up all the resources and then make tons of money doing nothing so they can then Hoover up even more and it becomes a never ending cycle of wealth creation. This leaves ordinary working folk priced out of the housing market and paying through the noise to pay rent, unable to save.

There is some serious money in this country but somehow we have come to accept greed as an acceptable human trait and we don’t get the very wealthy to pay what’s fair. We are not addressing the grotesque inequality.

There really shouldn't be a need for any charities if the world was fair

Start with subsidized nurseries then we'll talk @kate

This . In an ideal world there shouldn’t be a need for fundraising but the children do benefit..so what is the answer?

Totally agree. It makes me feel weird cos I know he's doing/done something amazing....BUT the crying and the 'legend/hero' talk is cringe.

Feel like I need to say that I do donate to charity, cos it feels so wrong to say that about him...but they do a similar thing every year on Radio 1 or 2 and follow the same gushing pattern so it feels really fake and forced.

I agree and disagree. You are absolutely right that it's a shameful state of affairs BUT you are wrong because these children aren't getting their needs met by the state, and with CIN some of them are.

I loathe it, always have. I give to various charities on an ad hoc basis, donate all the stuff from my regular clearouts to charity rather than sell them, basically I do what I can when I can. So I hate this annual guilt tripping fest and never watch. I feel the same about Comic Relief, guess this makes me a mean spirited creature!

I have a slightly complicated relationship with Children in Need.
I have personally benefited from it - a provision near me was built by the DIY SOS CIN thingy, and is open to disabled children and adults. It's great. But as a multiply disabled adult, I really wouldn't want to share my private medical information on national television. I find it hard enough to deal with that many staff at uni have those details when arguably they don't really need it to make things accessible. I don't like that the private medical information of young children is shared, as they are not able to give consent. Imagine growing up to find that your birth story and history of all your hardest moments was public knowledge. We can raise money for charity without the side order of pity. (Yes I agree the gov should be funding a lot of this stuff, but fact is they're not). I've seen it argued by other disabled people that the audience are gawping at the modern day "freak show", and while that sounds inflammatory, they're not far wrong.

I very much agree with you; however, CIN don't actually do any charity work, so there are loads and loads of normal reasonable charitable costs that they would never incur anyway.

Basically, CIN is an agency that fundraises on behalf of (some) smaller, lesser-known charities, which effectively costs them 5% of the total given that is assigned to them, the 5% being the admin costs incurred by CIN in getting it to them in the first place.

I'm sure they'd still much rather have 95% of a share of whatever a huge, well-known organisation like CIN can raise rather than 100% of zero raised under their own steam, because nobody has heard of them; but I do think that a lot of people have the idea that CIN is very hands-on in doing the actual charitable work, when it doesn't at all in reality.

Where is Captain Tom when we need him 😝

To be fair, you have no idea how much of their money they may (or may not) quietly give to CIN - or any other charity.

Jason Manford did instantly donate £5K of his own money in return for two celebs in a sliming challenge who had managed to avoid it getting slimed after all.

Even giving their time is a sacrifice for TV stars who can command high appearance fees, when they could potentially have taken a very well-paying job in the same slot instead.

CIN also collects money when Labour’s in Government.

I don’t donate or watch it because I don’t want to be a “white savior” 🤣🤣

It’s easy for charities to say 95% goes to the cause, they can use all sorts of justification for that, including in some cases huge salaries of CEO and directors, don’t believe the hype I’m afraid, have worked for several well known charities and it’s heartbreaking how much is smoke and mirrors

But that's just CIN themselves, who are a 'wrapper' charity. 5% of all money is instantly gone in admin, before the remainder (well, whatever they don't hoard) is given to the successful applying charities - and then those charities have to pay for their own admin and other costs out of whatever they receive.

Another charity bashing thread. 😳

Way to go MN 👏

I agree with you. It's never sat comfortably with me.

Yes, very much this. I'd object to any of my money going to charities that actually harm children (imho), by pushing puberty blockers and physical mutilation.

Plus, even if you don't work in any area relating to that contentious issue, I'm sure I read somewhere that you're forced to toe the 'woke' line before they will even consider your application.