do you support children in need?

Do you support children in need if so watch the concert on Friday 19th November on BBC1 and BBC1HD at 19:00

well...do ya?

Very worthy causes, I know, but I have an allergy to grown people dressing up as oversize teddy bears, and anyway my charity-dispensing habits are private. I shall be watching Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows at the cinema instead.

(un)Fortunately Leeds film festival scheduled their anime day for this Friday so I'll be there instead.

Shame it occurs in Movember: my donors may get charity fatigue :^/

agree completely with ed-pendragon - the hype puts me off. Support Bookaid instead.

Tom

Yep i agree its kinda weird especially with grown ups acting stupid

#7: I really don't mind grown-ups acting stupid, but I don't have to watch it.

There are two aspects here, aren't there, the worthy causes and the fun element raising money. Nothing wrong with the latter, but it all gets rather frantic with the telethon shenanigans.

#3 #6: Agree with ed.pendragon and homefield. And the TV part of it is a bit too much "in your face". Most of my charity giving has been to the Stroke Association but when last month they sent me three books of raffle tickets to sell to family and friends I bought them myself as I don't like putting people in a difficult situation. Lots of people are very generous (more so than me) but have their own favourite causes.

#9: Now here's a thing: I'm very happy to give regularly, by direct debit or whatever, to worthy causes, but it really irritates me when there are further begging letters and -- worst of all -- RAFFLE TICKETS (apparently it is cost effective in terms of postage as enough recipients respond because they feel guilty or, like PossMan, don't want to bother friends and family). It puts me off and, if others feel the same, must be counter-productive in terms of goodwill.

I'm a pudseyphobe, and assuage any guilt about unsolicited raffle tickets by recycling them, but this is also the season of winter fuel allowances for some of us who are warm enough anyway. So mine goes to a charity for the homeless, who are not.

I prefer giving money to the homeles, least I know where it's going.

>12 Godlike:
To the nearest off-licence/liquor store? It's a bit cynical, I know, but I've seen it happen.

I know it happens but I am almost homeless, i can see where there coming from. If your on the streets you want to drink, trust me.

Sorry to hear that.

I don't support Children in Need. I don't like the hype and I'd rather have direct choice of which charities my money is going to. I don't need a TV show to tell me to donate.
These days I prefer to donate to small volunteer led charities with few overheads rather than the big institutions that spend vast amounts of money on CEOs and administration.

I don't directly support CiN. But there are other aspects of the whole shebang that could be regarded as essential.

1. Raising public awareness of (a) the charities involved and (b) more importantly the social needs of the disadvantaged young.
2. Social cohesion: so many works-related and community fund-raising activities that may help to cement relationships as participants focus on the fun side of serious causes.
3. The sheer amount of money raised in one go which might be harder to garner over a year by piecemeal efforts, and the ability of charities to forward-plan the projects that they want to address.

Of course, the distastefulness of some of antics people get up to, the general hysteria whipped up in the TV studios, and the dubiousness of some of the humour broadcast rather take the shine off it all for me.

I don't like all that video crap, showing the people in need, like, really, really looking sad and stuff. Like guilt tripping.

I think there is a problem in our society where things have gone a bit backwards in terms of guilt. Guilt is a positive emotion, which makes us do good things and look out at what other people experience and stop us being too self-consumed. I have noticed in our society 'guilt tripping' is a phrase used to denote it as being a bad thing, like 'political correctness' instead of non-sexism/homophobia/racism. I think the guilt felt is the only way to make people realise that perhaps that should give some of their money to people less fortunate - not much else seems to do the trick.

I don't like feeling guilty, I give money to homeless people, I don't see many do that. Sure I haven't been to Africa to help those kids but lets look closer to home first.

I don't like all that video crap, showing the people in need, like, really, really looking sad and stuff.

Are you serious? The VT sequences are meant to be highlighting what the whole thing is for. It's free TV amusement, but there's an informational message that underpins it.

Mind you, if I watch I do tend to switch off when I see the same sequence for the umpteenth time, though.

>20 Godlike:
If you don't like feeling guilty, there's a simple solution: don't watch any of it on TV. Nobody's forcing you.

yeah my point is that they can show it once, twice but no more, please . I don't like watching the shit, It makes me cry, I would rather watch Casablanca to make me cry, it's movie tears for something that ain't real.
Like I said should be looking closer to home.

I don't know about the looking closer to home thing. I think that a person's geographical location shouldn't make any difference to the compassion and effectual help afforded to them. I very much appreciate the plight of homeless people, have had more than one friend who had been in that situation in the past, and can't stand the stigma given to such people. On the other hand, homeless people generally still have access to clean drinking water, and our National Health Service. I prefer to give money when I can to WaterAid, for example, who have less of the bureaucracy than CiN, but give money to those who are in truly desperate need, regardless of their location. I see the location aspect as relatively arbitrary in a moral sense.