Our weekly round-up of interesting and outlandish information, collected from the corners of the charity sector.
Charity finds itself in the downward doghouse
Let Diary pose you, dear reader, a serious question. Did you know that the British Wheel of Yoga (BWY) was in fact a registered charity? No, neither did this column.
A cursory glance at the charity register though will confirm this to be the truth. It’s a charity that provides, according to its charitable activities, “a portfolio of courses for class-based and distance learning students” of the ancient art of yoga and also runs a number of teacher training and accreditation centres across the UK. Last year it had an income of nearly £1m and purports to have over 7,200 subscribing members.
In its capacity as the UK’s governing body of all things yoga…ry, the BWY has begun a year-long consultation with yoga enthusiasts to “create national standards for teachers”. In essence, the BWY is concerned that unlicensed yoga practitioners are causing grievous bodily harm to portly middle-management types, and Shoreditch hipsters alike, in their race to cash in on a national rise in yoga’s celebrity-driven popularity.
These accusations have got some yogis in a bit of a twist however – The Times has quoted certain yoga ‘traditionalists’ who have hit back at the charity saying that one cannot regulate a “religion” and that any attempts to do so are “neo-colonialist”.
Swami Ambikananda, a Hindu monk and chairwoman of the Traditional Yoga Association, is quoted in The Times as saying: “This is dividing the world of yoga. We are not insensitive to people’s safety but yoga is a 7,000-year-old religion and a quasi-governmental organisation cannot regulate a religion. Attempts to do so are the height of hubris.”
"The height of hubris!" This column is so fond of a good turn of phrase.
So it seems the worm – or wheel, as the case may be – has turned. For those really interested, The Times has really gone in with both feet on this tiff. The article is vast, and summing it up would take far too long. Diary will however draw your attention to a very helpful four-point guide (printed about halfway down) for first-timers seeking to achieve inner peace within the comfortable confines of their own home.
Diary’s favourite deals with the ‘downward dog’ pose. Quote: “Watch the hamstrings. It’s easy to overstretch, especially if they are usually tight”. Wiser words were never spoke.
This story has got it all really: a neo-colonial governing body, an outspoken traditionalist running to the warm embrace of the Murdoch press with a witty turn of phrase and a four-point guide designed to protect the hamstrings.
The charity sector in 2016 folks, you've got to love it.
Without knowing the ins and outs, Diary would say that the BWY could probably afford to be a little more flexible about this, right?
It ain’t easy being cheesy
This column has exclusively seen leaked communications between a senior member of the Charity Finance Group and a journalist. The conversation surrounds the CFG team’s recent “team run”, which appeared at first glance to be a team-bonding exercise in every sense of the word.
Andrew O’Brien, head of policy and engagement at CFG, and lovingly referred to across the editorial desks of CSM as ‘the Big Cheese’ (for reasons that have never been entirely clear) is reported to still be recovering from his exertions.
“I'm still recovering from the run, just about walking properly again,” O’Brien said, three or four days after the fact. “In the end we all split up so I didn't see much of them [the CFG team], but at the end we all met up...it wasn't quite as happy an occasion as it looked on Twitter.”
I think @CFGtweets may have discovered #teamGB next long distance runners #mondaymemories #teamCFG pic.twitter.com/qBkQ4EVxZ2
— Andrew O'Brien (@CFG_OBrien) October 24, 2016
Certain elements of the leaked communication have been deliberately redacted by this column on account of there being a rude word in it… Who knew the Big Cheese was capable of such language, even when quoting others?
Diary is sure you’ll agree that he and the CFG team look positively spiffing in trackies though. It is, after all, a kind of suit.
Get to the point!
Finally, from the heady world of charity shops, a Plymouth-based shop was forced to call the local constabulary, when an unknown person decided to make a decidedly sharp donation. Yes, they donated an actual sword.
The Plymouth police force have subsequently tweeted a picture of the weapon, with the caption “There are some things that just aren’t suitable to donate to a charity shop. Here’s one of them…” with an embarrassed-monkey emoji.
While the weapon has been described by an employee of the shop as “purely decorative”, the Plymouth Herald still ran with the headline: “Terrifying sword handed in to Plymouth charity shop is seized by police”.
Diary probably shouldn’t be throwing stones in glass houses, however. It's never once used purely clickbait headlines to drive readership...
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