Our weekly round-up of interesting and outlandish information, collected from the corners of the charity sector
A belts and bracers donation
Jodie Marsh – remember her? The former lads mag’s centrefold staple, turned ‘media personality’ cum bodybuilder and tattoo aficionado has re-emerged in the less salubrious parts of the national media this week for charitable reasons.
Where to start? In a nutshell, Marsh is auctioning off the pair of – Diary’s going to say ‘infamous’ – belts that she wore one three separate occasions out clubbing to “preserve her modesty” on eBay and has said the proceeds will go to the Being Me Campaign.
Aside from Diary being forced to constantly switch from the Daily Mail’s story across to a bland spreadsheet whenever one of its colleagues wanders passed – seriously, those belts leave nothing to the imagination! – one might find oneself questioning why this is news? A woman whose raison d’etre in life is to be in an almost crushingly permanent state of semi-nakedness is flogging some tat for a charity no-one’s ever heard of – big whoop, right?
Big whoop indeed, because some punter has apparently bid £150,000 OF HIS HARD EARNED FOR THESE BELTS! £150,100 of their hard earned, in fact.
Over to you DM Online. “'I've spoken to eBay and they think it IS a real bid! I don't want to get my hopes up yet though,” said Marsh. “I've had such a crappy year that I can't allow myself to get excited. I'll be giving the largest portion of money to the Being Me Campaign and then smaller amounts to animal charities.”
First off, while the gender of the apparent bidder is not given, Diary just knows it’s a bloke; the sort of bloke who sends out for the pre-worn undergarments and stockings from ladies off the internet. Even so, £150,000 seems a bit much, doesn’t it? Really… guy… just, Diary doesn't know, buy a car instead or, maybe, some counselling or something?!
Anyway… Marsh may well not be getting her hopes up, YET she is incredulous that some other charity turned down the very same belts just over a year ago.
“The maddest thing is that I offered the belts to a different charity a year ago to auction off themselves and they said "no". How mad is that?! I don't know if they just didn't want the agro involved in auctioning but they weren't keen.”
Diary loves the idea that she offered them to Cancer Research UK or someone. Imagine the meeting – the whole fundraising team in some fancy, brightly light meeting-room, the walls festooned with touchscreens and LED lights. “So,” one of the management team begins, nervously sipping some coffee. “Do we really want to take the proceeds from a used pair of Jodie Marsh’s ‘boob-belts’?”
Still, fair play to Jodie Marsh and to the weird fella out there with more money than sense.
Where in the world is Rob Wilson?
The answer is Southampton, which would have been fine if 350 eager charity folk weren't expecting to hear him speak in London.
Yesterday the trusts and foundations world gathered for the Association of Charitable Foundations’ annual conference, where the star act was the minister for civil society, who was due to give the opening address to the 350-plus attendees, eager to hear him.
Unfortunately as delegates arrived they were greeted with a sign informing them that the minister was unable to attend, he was detained on urgent Parliamentary business. We’re not sure what business - not a lot happens in Parliament before 11am - but then Diary is very rarely up before then anyway so maybe the minister knows something we don’t.
It was all most inconvenient for ACF staff. You see when the first invited the minister to speak earlier this year he turned them down. Then they had to include him as a last minute in August, when he got in touch to say he’d very much like to speak after all. Then he pulled out again at the last minute.
But it gets worse. Having been a no-show at the ACF conference at around midday he was spotted on Twitter at another conference in Southampton, where he delivered a speech giving the tiniest of updates about Local Charities Day. Like, really small. Like, piddly.
“Are we offended? No!” Declared David Emerson as he opened the second half the day in London.
Swing and a miss!
‘Charity golf tournament for children with cancer featured naked women, sex acts and raised no cash’.
When covering this complex and lonely ol’ beat that is charity sector satire there are darker moments in which this column wonders why it does what it does, week after week? Does Diary really make a difference?
Does it really do anything to help the hundreds and thousands of UK charity sector workers who are out there every day trying to make a difference do their jobs any better? Does it bring even a chink of light into their Fridays?
Then, you know, a headline like this pops up on the Metro, and everything is sunshine and light again.
The event, which took place in Columbia, Illinois, was described by witnesses as featuring “women flashing their breasts” and “taking part in live sex acts” at what was ostensibly, as described above, a GOLF TOURNAMENT FOR CHARITY!
Perhaps getting wind of the lewdness-in-the-offing, the Make-A-Wish foundation distanced itself from the event prior to it taking place, probably pretty swiftly, and requested that all of its branding be removed.
A 45-year-old bloke with a goatee has been arrested on suspicion of “deceptive practice”. Goatee man defended his actions on Facebook, having presumably being released on bail, saying he “only had good intentions for the event” and said that newspaper reports were only “half true”.
To be honest, half true is bad enough, mate. Which half is true, anyway? The naked women or the lack of fundraising. It's not good, whichever way you look at it.
Diary welcomes death of Charity
We would like to say that reports of the death of charity are greatly exaggerated. And who knows, maybe the death of Charity, too.
Yep, we're talking Charity Dingle, a profound irritant who inteferes constantly with this column's attempt to search Google News for lightly humorous stories about the sector.
So thanks, Emmerdale, for killing her off. If you really have, of course.
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