How do we know our donations help people in need?

The total amount given to charity by generous Brits in 2017 was estimated to be £10.3 billion, according to the Charities Aid Foundation (CAF), up slightly on the previous year.

The CAF says fewer people gave more last year as the number of people who gave to charity either via donations or sponsoring someone decreased from 2016.

SWMBO and I try to do our bit to help various good causes – monthly donations to a few causes dear to our heart; one-off events such as the Walk for Life and the Alzheimer’s Society Memory Walk and volunteering our time. Nothing unusual in any of that.

But SWMBO, who volunteers one morning a week in a local Cancer Research UK (CRUK) shop, got quite a shock recently when a TV programme revealed that only 20p from each £1 raised by CRUK actually goes to the people and organisations the charity is trying to help.

Apparently the money actually doing any real good when you donate to Age UK is just 5p from every £1 raised.

Now we all can understand that these charities have overheads – staff to pay, rent to find etc.

But just 5% or 20% of people’s hard-earned donations actually doing any good is mind-boggling.

All charities have their paid staff, usually in impressive multi-storeyed HQs on good salaries, and all rely heavily on volunteers, be it to man shops, shake collecting tins outside supermarkets or be on the ground helping needy people.

I bet most of these volunteers would recoil in horror if they knew how little of what they help to raise actually ends up helping people.

One woman who popped into the local CRUK shop this week to pay in her sponsorship money for the Race for Life said, quite innocently and perhaps even frustratingly, that she had heard that a very large percentage of people undertaking sponsored activities for charity never pay their money in. Is it just me or isn’t this absolutely outrageous?

Mind you, that snippet of information probably explains why most charities constantly remind people to pay their sponsorship money in.

Which of course means they are spending even more money on staff, phone calls, stationery and postage – all money that should be helping people.

I'm ready for you, Mr Squirrel.

Yep. It's war (right). My battle with a squirrel who keeps attacking our bird feeders has seen me unarmed. But no longer. Eat water. Much more fun than SIL's (sister-in-law's) suggestion of getting a squirrel-proof feeder.

You can’t help but have noticed there is a new series of it ain’t right, and it ain’t proper, sorry, Poldark, starting this weekend.

Numerous TV shows over the past week have featured cast members plugging the fourth series of the life and times of ordinary, and some extraordinary, folk in Cornwall in olden days.

I admire that there Capt. Ross for one simple reason – he has a sworn enemy in George Warleggan.

Which, in a roundabout way, leads me back to the subject covered in my last missive – the bucket list.

I want a sworn enemy. Every man should have one. But I am suffering sworn-enemy-less-ness.

Now that ain’t right. Applications on a postcard, please.

Waking up, at last, to our overuse of plastics

Britain is finally waking up to the consequences of our over-use of plastic.

Environment Secretary Michael Gove confirmed late March that ministers would introduce a deposit return scheme for single use drinks containers such as plastic and glass bottles and aluminium cans in England - subject to consultation.

It is estimated that the cost would be somewhere between 10 and 30 pence per bottle, depending on the size of the container, and could be refunded to the holder if the container is returned to a collection point.

Germany introduced this scheme in 2002, with varying deposit amounts depending on the container type, use and size.

The ever efficient Germany even introduced automatic collection points to automatically scan containers and issue a receipt for the deposit.

The scheme successfully saw German PET bottle return and recycling rise to 98.5% - the highest in the world.

The UK currently recycles just 37.9% of its plastic waste, according to government statistics.

So, let us all hope the consultation period is short and sweet so we can start repairing what we’ve broken. What are we waiting for? Get on with it.

One question about plastics, however. How comes my 5p supermarket carrier bag will hang around for hundreds of years but my plastic oil tank only lasted 15 years? Just asking.