To be amazed that there were any green discs in the Waitrose charity thing for the Cat's Protection League . . .

[BalloonSlayer]

. . . when the other two charities to choose from were a SCBU and a charity for families of people with Downs Syndrome?

There were about two feet of green disks for the SCBU, about 18" for the other charity and about a foot for the Cats' Protection.

I mean, I love cats, but would ANYONE think they were more important than the other two?

And yeah, I do understand the political argument that the SCBU should be funded well enough not to need to have to raise its own money.

Cats? You know - it's a cat.

I think human charities like Cancer research etc are more important than Cats... but hey, they are creatures and someone running the charity obviously adores them.. Kittens are gorgeous i think.

YABU.

People can give to whoever the hell they want.

Maybe they care more about animals than people.

Doesn't make them Osama Bin Laden.

Our Waitrose usually has very obscure causes - it's not often there's the option of something more obviously worthy like SCBU or Downs Syndrome. When there is something like that, the discs are all in that pot!

Our Waitrose had a box for Gloucesterhire Women against Domestic Violence, or whatever it was calle.d. It was near enough empty (up against Sue Ryder and a cancer research charity).

I was happy to out my discs in for the DV as I can imagine they have a far harder time raising funds than Sue Ryder and larger, more publicised charities.

It's because not everybody likes children.

I read and give to something that has a meaning to me not what I think other people think I should give my vote to.

YABcompletelyU

It is not down to you to decide what is a worthy charity and what is not. Perhaps complain to Waitrose?

I think it would be very sad for Waitrose to have three charities, and one of them receive no donations, don't you?

I remember my SIL and BIL ranting furiously when their eldest DD's class voted to donate the money they had raised by some means to the RSPCA. They were disgusted. Which I thought was mean-spirited. Charity is given from the heart.

Absolutely, GetOrf, I totally agree.

They don't usually have big charities, presumably because smaller local causes find it more difficult to get support, and I'm all in favour of that.

I don't think I've ever seen a big national in our Waitrose, which is good. But some of the local causes they opt for I do really struggle to see as particularly 'worthy' tbh. I prefer a happy balance with local charities for what I would call reasonably worthy causes, like SCBU units, local DV charities or similar - still good causes but on a local basis.

But sometimes I do struggle to work out which box to put it in when they are all for tuck shops for a youth group or similar.

It is mean-spirited Orm I agree. Oh they are only animals, don't worry about the beaten and mistreated ones then

charity come from the heart

the discs only give an indicatio to waitrose, what they do i s divide the money they have, accoding to the proportion suggested by the green discs. its the same amount of money. waitrose just lets the customers decide what proportion of the pot the different charities get.

Personally, I would much prefer to give to a small animal charity than to a unit in a hospital which recieves direct government funding.

It's not about saying that animals are more important than children, rather than I believe some charities are more in need than others.

Oh, it won't have been for the Cats' Protection League as such, it will have been for the local branch.

I bet the cats got the most green discs too.

Georgiemum - I think they got the least IIRC

Op states that the CPL had the least amount of tokens in it- some posters seem to have impression that they got more than the others.

Nothing weird about wanting to give money to animal charities. Some people do prefer animals to people, it's their perogative. Some give money to both.
Even though I am skint I cannot bring myself to cancel my RSPCA direct debit, I think it is the fact that animals have no-one else but us to stand up for them, plus receive no government funding. Plus my cats are both rescue and I kind of want to give something back.

My dd always puts ours in and its as simple as the one on a particular end gets it because she has to climb on the bench to put it in and its the only one she could reach. So, if the cats are on that end they would get hers ! If there's one I feel particularly strong about I would encourage her to put it in that one.

Is that "so what" directed at me??

YABU.

What do you think pays for the medical treatment and neutering costs of unwanted animals?

FWIW I have kids and pets and I never give to human charities, always animals ones.

Came across a passage in a memoir I was reading the other day which described the attitude I have come across before (and I support both animal and human charities) - author was in a conversation about his giving with an aquaintance who said 'I don't know, when people talk about what they want to do for animals, I always wonder why that compassion isn't offered to other people' Author - My anger flared, a hot , fierce flush. I said 'You asked me what I wanted to do, not what I thought I should do'...I might have said, if I was truly being honest, that I've never known anyone holding this opinion to demonstrate much in the way of empathy with other people anyway; it seems that compassion for animals is an excellent predictor of one's ability to care for one's fellow human beings'.

Sorry to quote from elsewhere, it just rang true with some of the attitudes towards charitable giving I've come across.

I let DS choose - and sometimes the cashiers take pity on DD's big blue eyes and give her an extra one and DS "helps" her choose as well. I am not convinced DS would have understood Down's Syndrome or SCBU. He did vote for a play area for the local A&E the other day.