Children in Need


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I've always been a bit puzzled by the 'Children in Need' event. As I understand it, if I go down the road shaking a tin under everyone's nose and asking for money, I am in the wrong. The BBC takes a day's viewing and listening, shakes the biggest 'tin' in the country, asks for and gets millions. I dare say I'll be criticised for being uncharitable and a miserable so and so, but I make a point of neither watching nor listening to what goes on. If someone is on the street looking for a donation to what I feel to be a good cause, I will give to it, but at this annual intrusive plea, I feel a bit annoyed. Does anyone else feel like joining the ranks of the uncharitable?

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Children in need ? Where ? I don't see many children around here in need, if so, their parents ought to be ashamed

The benefit system is the best it's ever been, so I hear.

I pay enough in taxes already to support children.

Me & Mrs Catfan DO support several animal charities.

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Unfortunately the children don't benefit from the benefits. Their parents spend it on fags, booze, drugs and huge TV's, sky and all the other luxuries ordinary working folks can't afford. Their children are the ones who get neglected, beaten and starved and eventually die, as with baby Peter and Hamza Khan. These are the real children in need.

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About 10 years ago I worked in a house in The Park one of the few not turned into flats etc. I was doing the plumbing work for a fantastic new kitchen, The RSJ's to support the roof alone cost over £2000, hand made units etc, etc. Total cost well over £60,000, for a kitchen.

Talking to the builder I discovered the couple who owned such a lavish property were both employed by the same company. The British Red Cross.

Needless to say there are now very few major charities I give to.

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I've never been a fan of Terry Wogan, to me he is the epitome of someone who's made a little go a very long way.

But I really can't stand seeing him on 'Children In Need' - coming across as Mr. Charitable.

I don't know about now, but he used to get paid £10,000 every time he did the show - the only celebrity to do so.

In 2006 this 'anomaly' was brought to light that he'd received a fee all these years. At the time he was on £800,000 a year working on Radio 2, and he'd even had the nerve to write an article in the Sunday Telegraph about overpaid presenters.

He was heavily criticised when his Children in Need 'fee' came to light and he insisted that he hadn't known about it, but I guess if you're already so highly paid (by us license fee payers!) then you don't notice an extra £10,000 suddenly appearing in your bank account (!)

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#5 Hippo girl, I have no idea!

I travelled to Yeovil last week on the bus, and at Bristol, while waiting for a connection a couple with a baby in a pushchair came up to the row of seats where I was sitting, asked someone to give up their seat so they could sit down as they had a baby (in the pushchair!!!) The baby was in filthy clothes and about 6 months old (I guess, comparing with my grandson who is the same age).

They rolled a blanket up and put it up to her chin, propped a bottle of very watery looking milk into her mouth, then sat back and proceeded to stuff their faces with burger and chips! They looked totally surprised when the baby started choking, and a bit put out, probably because of the disturbance to their meal. So the "father" took the bottle away and opened a bag of crisps and gave them to the baby in her hand, laughing and saying "Aw look they've stuck to her hands"

At this point I stood up and turned my back on them. I really didn't want to see any more. I did consider offering some well experienced advice, but what would be the point.

I would have been regarded as some old interfering bag and probably told in no uncertain terms where to get off.

Yes it is the parents who are to blame, but I wonder where the rot set in. I tried to bring my children up with the right set of values and so far am glad to see that they are doing fine, but it must have set in during our generation, as it is our children's generation which is failing, so where did we go wrong?

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We probably all started out the same way raising our children. We had to work to give them food and warmth. We loved them and were aspirational for their futures .Manners, moral values and appreciation were all taken as common practice. A day in town was a treat, toys were something you gave at birthday and Xmas, but never off a list

I started my teaching career in inner city Manchester and have seen genuine poverty amongst some families ....definitely CHILDREN IN NEED , but most of those families still wanted the same values for their children

Somewhere along the way, the selfishness of a benefits culture has overtaken the joy of putting our children first.....Children today are in need, but a need of social values, a parental guidance and a day in town being shown the sights, not Primark, Brighthouse or Greggs....

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I ignore and avoid any occasion where charity is turned into Showbiz. It's an occasion for celebrities to raise their profile if they've not been seen in the tabloids for a few months.

Why does Children in Need always get the special treatment? Why not any other charity? Somebody must have friends in the right place.

Give to charities which you choose, and whenever you choose to do it. It shouldn't be a special event.

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The BBC could not give a French Connection UK about children in need. It is a money spinning programme which is watched by the masses. Stuff like that has become a culture. A bit like the circus when Lady Diana died. This is basically the sort of OTT s--t that the common world we know has sunk to.

Children in need also raises the profile of the BBC allowing people to be distracted from the profligate spending on high incomes and pay-offs for their high profile celebrities. That's me started. How many of you members out there do (or did) a very demanding job and did it well, but only received a fraction of the pay of these useless BBC w-----s?

I believe in giving to needy causes. But not to the people who work for them. If it is a charity and full time, then a basic living wage, like the one I have to live on, is fine. If it is a one-off like children in need, and they are already on millionaire income, then the word volunteer comes to mind.

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Unfortunately the children don't benefit from the benefits. Their parents spend it on fags, booze, drugs and huge TV's, sky and all the other luxuries ordinary working folks can't afford. Their children are the ones who get neglected, beaten and starved and eventually die, as with baby Peter and Hamza Khan. These are the real children in need.

I object to this steroetypical comment. I have been severely disabled all my life. I worked 40 hours a week for Nottm City Council for over ten years when leaving college, even returning to work when my first child was just six weeks old. However, my condition worsened suddenly when I was 29 and I had to resign on health grounds. Three years later my husband had to leave his well paid career to care for me. Since then I've not been able to return to the workplace as my condition is progressive. Additionally, fro the past five years I've been battling cancer.

Comments like those above de-value my contribution to society - I did what I could for as long as I could - and they only serve to reinforce judgemental and divisive attitudes between the 'haves' and the 'have-nots'. My children were always well fed and clothed. My husband and I never got drunk, took drugs, or squanded our benefits by gambling. Both my children are now grown up and work incredibly hard in their chosen careers. Yet if I'd have been born in the 1930's, the Nazi's would have seen me as a drain on society, and had me euthanised as 'life not worthy of life.'

I freely admit that there are those who defraud the system, who are ungrateful and lazy, and who should be made to step up and be responsible for their actions/way of life.

But, there are individuals in all walks of life who demand to live outside the bounds of acceptable societal values. Your comments are as dangerous as saying all people of a certain etnic race, or from a geographical location are thieves, or liars, or are violent. They are comments which breed intolerance and prejudice. Please don't tar us all with the same brush.

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#16 Sorry was not out to offend any genuine users of the benefit system. As you stated you have worked long and hard. I was referring to the many freeloaders who are on the system. Believe me there are many. I speak from experience. I have worked with their children at school as the cook, where they appear (sometimes if their parents can be bothered to get them in, and more often than not our head teacher would go and fetch them into school herself!) in the same grubby clothes for several weeks, matted hair and dirty faces and you cannot even raise a smile from them. But they wolf their meal down as it will probably be the only one they get until the next day!

As a youth worker, working mainly with young offenders it is the same. Many of these kids are just needing some TLC. What broke my heart about that particular time of my career was that I worked with these young men/women, helping them with their reparation. They joined our group for an average of 6-8 weeks and we built a good relationship with many of them, gaining their trust. And most of them were great individuals, just made some bad choices. Sadly after they had finished their reparation order that was it. There was no follow up contact and they were just chucked back into the system and so it would go around again and we just knew we would be seeing them again. Most came from broken or abusive backgrounds, with parents who didn't give a damn, and we did feel if we could have maintained the contact then maybe we could help them out of the cycle just by being there and supporting them.

So it is these parents to whom I am referring dunkirkduck, the ones who don't care and won't work, it was not a generalisation aimed at all on benefits. One of my daughters, herself is on benefits. She has an 8 year old son with Williams Syndrome and 3 other children under 5. She cannot go to work. Her husband works all the hours he can as a NCC Chef at the university, but as the caterer members of this forum will tell you, it's not the highest paid job out there, and they struggle to make ends meet, but they work hard, the children all get to their various activities/schools and they are clean and well fed. And our daughter and son in law are exhausted most of the time. I do not begrudge them one penny of their benefits.

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It's not a culture shock it's just that these people are used to living on rubbish tips across Europe and the proceeds of crime. Why pretend otherwise? If they are that bad that politicians come out and say to expect rioting it's more than a culture shock.

Watch this video if you want to know what the Roma are all about.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LGDj0B5WQaA

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I had an interesting experience today. We went to London by coach and stopped at a service area which had a Starbuck's. I went and bought a couple of coffees and the girl serving me asked if I would like to give to Children in Need. (A day after the event) I said 'No I didn't', and got 60p in 5p pieces change, obviously because I didn't contribute to children, or possibly 'Starbuck's' staff. I warned everyone behind me in the queue. On the way back, we stopped at the same place and I bought 60p's worth of chocolate at the same place. All in 5p pieces of course.

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Bilboro-Lad

I posted that Vid here before, a real eye opener, there was no interest?

I saw about 6 of the women on Friar Lane yesterday!

In a little group.

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