Sports Relief 2012

[blowcushion]

... to wonder how much money has been spent in sending celebs and BBC crews to so many different locations to raise funds??? Do they all do it for nothing? Pay their own way? Just curious ...

The slebs mean we watch. A lot of people donate so it must work.

I've travelled in Rwanda, Uganda, SE Asia and so on. When you see the issues face to face, you wouldn't suggest that poverty here is the same, it is not. I got a tropical disease and would definitely have died had I been a local. My care was expensive and the disease is not curable. They have to give you care and if you are lucky and get good, appropriate care, you will live. That is something, along with malaria, which is not entirely preventable. About the nets, one charity started giving out two nets or three so that one could be used for fishing and one for malaria protection. If you have to choose between feeding your children and maybe risking them catching something that everyone in your family has lived through (think measles or chicken pox) wouldn't you go fishing with the mosquito net? I know I would.

These are different children to those who were helped 25 years ago. Obviously, unless you vaccinate everyone, the next set of kids will need vaccines and so on. Same with anti-malarials. We don't stop giving to rape or domestic violence charities because it should have stopped by now, we assume that there will be more survivors that need support. Same with wars in Africa.

It's that heartbreaking footage that raises millions, not stupid little skits and videos of a twerp sitting in a tub of baked beans.

I only flicked onto Sports Relief because the film I was watching had finished. Three minutes into the first video from Africa I was trying not to cry and online donating 30 quid. Because I watched two women watching heir children die in front of them, and I thought of my DD upstairs in her cot not a care in the world and how bloody unfair life was for these poor women who had been born into a different world where their children died because they had to drink dirty water/got the flu. So I gave money because it genuinely does help. It doesn't solve everything, it doesn't sort out the militias and wars and all the other problems, but donating for things like vaccines does help, in a way food parcels and so on don't.

If I'd turned over and it had been Jennifer Saunders flogging the life out of the one mildly funny thing she's ever done, followed by "this is Barry who raised 70 pounds for sport relief by sitting in a bath of baked beans for 37 days", I would have thought how tedious and turned over and watched something else. Say the whole Sports Relief costs come in at 1 million. They raised 50 million pounds. That's a really good return. Of course the BBC could have donated that 1 million and done a basic little thing in a studio but that would have raised peanuts in comparison.

Bramblina
You can turn on the tap & get hot water, go down the supermarket when your hungry & sleep with a roof over your head. If you cannot afford to live you can claim benefits.
Op YABVU. What they spend is a fraction compared to the millions they raise.
I think your attitudes are very sad.
If you'd been affected by any if these issues, at home or abroad, you'd want someone out their to show compassion & help.

And of course 50% of the money raised is spent in the UK, on things like support for bereaved families, child carers and people with MH problems - none of which is ever going to go away.

I think it's a very well intentioned and executed show.

bramblina, you sound lovely.

bramblina have my fourth

The crews and travel will have been paid by the license fee. And the presenters well have given their time for free.

It's easier to ask someone like, say, Davina, to work FOC when they earn hundreds if thousands a year than it is to ask a camera operator or producer who do not earn nearly so much. But the crews are kept to an absolute minimum (producer/director, camera operator & sound recordist plus a fixer from the charity) & they go for the shortest time possible.

There is no way they would make the kind of money they do without featuring well known people. These issues are regularly featured on the news but they do not have the same effect. You would have to have a heart made of stone not to be moved by these stories. I know not everyone can afford to donate but most of us can afford to give SOMETHING. If you can help these people in any way why wouldn't you?

Oh & Bramblina, my first ever

I thought David Walliams was very moving - and it is obviously important to send celebs out and have that reaction so that they will then swim the channel or do something as amazing.

I dont think thats the case ifancy - Sports Relief isnt made by the BBC its an independent production company so they will have paid travel etc. Its not liscence fee funded at all

The BBC will have paid a fee to the Sports Relief production company to make the programme. It's called the Production Fee & that money comes from the License Fee. I work in telly.

Bramblina your views on contraception are unenlightened. In a country where the only material support you get is from your family a big family equals more support. On top of that, just like Britain in past times the high chld mortality rate leads to more pregnancies.

Those scenes were heartbreaking and made me really angry. The government and armies aren't starving or drinking filthy water are they? Just like the world over its a case of unequal distribution of resources.

The information about what money has been spent will be on the Internet somewhere. Charity accounts are shown on the Charities Commission website.

Im not a fan of any of the BBC fundraising efforts, I think they do as much harm as good.

Harm?

What - you don't think the £120m+ that Sport Relief has raised since it started has done any good, Outraged? That's a ridiculous statement to make.

And BBC Children in Need raised £46m last year alone.

Was that 'harmful'?

No need to say anything further to bramblina as others have said it so well, however, have another love.

You would have to have a heart of stone not to be upset by some of the scenes shown on last night's programme. I found it upsetting in more ways than one though.
I think it's OK to show sick babies desperately in need of help. I don't think it is OK to show babies dying or their mother's reaction. I thought it was crass of John Bishop to talk about his three healthy children while watching a child struggling for its life. I hope the mother of that particular baby couldn't speak English. I realise that it must he difficult for these programmes to get it just right but I thought some of last night's footage went beyond decent limits.

Not crass at all, it's what moves people. Most of us would think it, it's a presenters job to say it.

I think sending celebs and people int he public eye is a win/win for sports relief it puts a more Human stamp on it , they are seeing it first hand, and yes money needs to be spent but these charities rely on the viewer seeing where the money is going iyswim , I can imagine some of them wont claim a fee for doing it though just expenses , I did worry about john Bishop poor fella looked exhasuted last night and just devastated ,

PosiePumblechook I was trying to say that in the same position I would not want some man who I had never seen before intruding on my grief. I wonder how much choice she had about this film being shot ?
I have no objections to celebs using their fame to draw attention to the awful problems, in fact I'm glad they do it.
I just thought that some of the people filmed were not given due respect as fellow human beings.

I cannot nderstand why, after more than 50 years of foreign aid and charity help, certain countries are in the same boat as they were long ago. Some countries had wells dug and standpipes attached. Local people were taught how to maintain them (a long ago Blue Peter programme). Why do those people still need help? They have had millions pumped into their countries by the Western World and now they just look up expecting more to come. Like this country, investment ought to go into contraception rather than helping them to achieve waterworks that they allow to rot. Like this country, contraception would mean fewer people to feed and water.

Some of The DR of Congo used to be Belgian. The Belgians installed infrastructure to be envied across the world - roads, railways etc. What has happened? Those roads and railways are overgrown and unusable because the local people did not care. They wanted, wanted, wanted.