Posts by ball.

Top charities are failing to provide proper information in their annual reports, according to a study by the industry watchdog.
The Charity Commission has examined reports and accounts from the top 200 charities in England and Wales.

The study discovered that one third "sold themselves short" when detailing their achievements.

While charities mainly relying on government funding were classified as "among the least transparent".

Most of the underperforming charities operate in culture, sport, recreation, health and housing.

The commission worked on the basis that any interested party should be able to get a complete picture of the financial performance, deployment of resources, structure, policies, priorities and achievements of a charity.

Its study claimed that 13 charities "said nothing at all" about their achievements.

Best performers

And almost half of the charities using volunteers "did not comment on their contribution as required".

International aid charities were the best performers, followed by those organisations working in social services and relief.

KEY FINDINGS
126 charities explained their achievements well
13 said nothing at all about their achievements
92 did not comment sufficiently on the activities of volunteers
12 international aid charities were top performers
73 charities, which mainly rely on government funding, were among the least transparent

Chief Charity Commissioner John Stoker said that the general standard was "not satisfactory" among the largest charities.

He said: "While there are some very good examples, too many charities in our study did not meet even the basic requirements.

"We hope that all charities will read the report and respond constructively.

"It's the large charities in particular who should be leading the way."

Retaining trust

Stephen Ainger, chief executive of Charities Aid Foundation which provides financial services to charities, said the industry must "raise its game".

He said: "It is vital that charities provide crystal clear information about their objectives, activities, use of their funds and impact.

"If we are to retain the trust and confidence of donors, the charity sector must be raising its game and providing the range of information that donors are likely to demand."

The commission also surveyed 1,000 members of the public, 70% of whom felt it is important for charities to provide such information in their reports.

The study, entitled Transparency and Accountability, involved 200 charities with a combined annual expenditure of £7bn.

29

Is anyone going to Glastonbury?

by reboot in

jw
friends

.

decided on the spur of the moment to try and get some glastonbury tickets yesterday,as there were still 55, 000 left due to the system cock ups... had friends who stayed up til 5am trying on the friday night but none of us had any luck, mind you, with two teenagers and a child it's the equivilent of a small mortgage...did anyone here have any joy?

i've just had a phone call this morning to say i had sunday tickets , the ones you can get if you live in somerset...ive got a phone number if anyone want to try it... so; if anyone wants to meet up to have a shamanistic dance or two, share moment in the tipi field or help me negociate the toilet block..... i'll be around...

ball.

I've got to go sooner or later. I drive through Glastonbury on my way to eMans BBQ and it's always just after the fest. My sister goes every year, she is getting married to a DJ, they are cool.

12

Why do people lie.

by ball. in

jw
friends

i am witnessing several friends break up at the moment and one of my best mate's wife has constantly denied being in an afair despite be-friending a 21 year old guy who saw more of her than he did, and numerous suspicious txt messages and so on and so on.

anyway, to cut a long story short, he moved in here with me and has just spent three weeks going insane, un-able to sleep, brain over-active, and if he wasn't such a sane chap, almost going paranoid.. well, some of you know i'm a bit of a geek, so we wired up his home pcs web cam and ran a citrix session with remote control and a web cam recorder with ftp to download the files, and i waited tonight while he watched the result.

bingo.

ball.

It's ok, he's been round there and turned it off I just found out. A drive with file sharing on it is going to let complete strangers download it if they know the name of it or if they browse your files.

12

Why do people lie.

by ball. in

jw
friends

i am witnessing several friends break up at the moment and one of my best mate's wife has constantly denied being in an afair despite be-friending a 21 year old guy who saw more of her than he did, and numerous suspicious txt messages and so on and so on.

anyway, to cut a long story short, he moved in here with me and has just spent three weeks going insane, un-able to sleep, brain over-active, and if he wasn't such a sane chap, almost going paranoid.. well, some of you know i'm a bit of a geek, so we wired up his home pcs web cam and ran a citrix session with remote control and a web cam recorder with ftp to download the files, and i waited tonight while he watched the result.

bingo.

ball.

Damn - I just found out this guy only had room for the recordings in his kazaa \ shareazza folder, and leaving that running was the pretense for leaving the PC on!!! OMG!

12

BBQ Update.

by Englishman in

jw
friends

righto, folks!, .

i've been asked a few times about how people will be fed.

orally, of course!

ball.

Hey everyone, last year I booked a day off work to travel home when I'd sobered up. This year, I booked TWO days.

Oh dear.

12

Why do people lie.

by ball. in

jw
friends

i am witnessing several friends break up at the moment and one of my best mate's wife has constantly denied being in an afair despite be-friending a 21 year old guy who saw more of her than he did, and numerous suspicious txt messages and so on and so on.

anyway, to cut a long story short, he moved in here with me and has just spent three weeks going insane, un-able to sleep, brain over-active, and if he wasn't such a sane chap, almost going paranoid.. well, some of you know i'm a bit of a geek, so we wired up his home pcs web cam and ran a citrix session with remote control and a web cam recorder with ftp to download the files, and i waited tonight while he watched the result.

bingo.

ball.

I am witnessing several friends break up at the moment and one of my best mate's wife has constantly denied being in an afair despite be-friending a 21 year old guy who saw more of her than he did, and numerous suspicious txt messages and so on and so on. Anyway, to cut a long story short, he moved in here with me and has just spent three weeks going insane, un-able to sleep, brain over-active, and if he wasn't such a sane chap, almost going paranoid.

Well, some of you know I'm a bit of a geek, so we wired up his home PCs web cam and ran a citrix session with remote control and a web cam recorder with ftp to download the files, and I waited tonight while he watched the result. Bingo. She's lying.

After a tearful evening, the poor chaps just gone to bed, saying he feels like he might get his first night's sleep now that he knows for sure in all these weeks. Truth is, she could have saved him all this if instead of false pretences, she had just told the truth. Instead of "you don't listen to me so I want a trial seperation", she could have said, "there's someone else". This would have saved a whole load of trouble, not to mention hard disk space. (last bit was a joke).

I know I may get a poster say something like "it is difficult", but it is something I have stood by in my life in practice, and I will always believe honesty is the best policy."

24

Regular Self-Pleasuring Reduces Chance of Prostate Cancer

by hemp lover in

jw
friends

at least, according to the july playboy advisor, it does.. q. does regular masturbation reduce the chance that you'll get prostate cancer?.

a. apparently yes.

you'll go blind and grow hair on your palms, but you'll live forever.

ball.

To me, the logical question would be... why is the statistic limited to self-pleasuring, if it is implying that the beneficial factor is the, err how can I say this, emptying, then why would that be limited to self pleasuring? Surely the same benefit would be gained from sex? Perhaps we can do our own study - any volunteers?