Popstar brings love, peace and joy; forgot food

Here is Fran Healy of pop band Travis mingling with the kiddies on some

African plain somewhere. Ostensibly this must be due to some Band Aid

thing. I didn’t bother reading the article, only to scan for the phrase

‘Band Aid’. No need. I can tell you what it says. Blah blah blah shocked

to see they have no food blah blah great band aid is having an impact blah

blah blah… I have some real issues with famous folk or western folk in

general flying out to Africa to fact find and ‘listen’, when really, I think

it’s rather rude and distasteful to visit these poor people. Visiting isn’t

the issue – it’s the bullshit cuddles and serious interest they display in

reporting back to the Great Unwashed how bad things are (or were, or

whatever) whilst standing next to the folk who haven’t eaten for weeks.

 

Publicity I suppose. Well it obviously is. In the photo above the kid’s

thoughtfully wearing a Save the Children branded vest. I remain cynical of

big charities. When you’re bootstrapping a company – i.e. starting from

scratch with little funds, you are extremely careful with your cash. You

make your own desks, you work from home, you keep costs down by using old

printers that still work perfectly well, you use doors and bits of wood

nailed together to form your desks. You really are careful with your

expenditure – spending money ONLY where it is absolutely necessary and

getting maximum value from your investment. While I can be ridiculed by

many – in fact, I’ve seen the ridicule happen real time – it is a superb

skill to employ. An old business partner of mine insisted upon making all

international calls via one of those 0800 calling card companies that

charged only 2p a minute to call the states, whilst everyone else paid 40p a

minute via BT. While it caused her no end of frustration having to dial a

25 digit account number and pin each time, she did it… it saved the company

maybe £30 or £40 a week in calls. Not a lot. But it added up. It wasn’t

our money – it was the investors money – and her perspective was that we

shouldn’t waste it at all. One which I agreed with. She was admirable in

her execution of this viewpoint. So when it comes to walking into the grand

old offices of these multi national charities, I find it quite irritating.

The public chuck in their one pound coins or phone up and agree to donate a

tenner a month to the folk in Africa. Only, quite a lot of this money goes

directly to landlords and service providers. Shouldn’t it be generally

known that charities have shitty offices? Surely as head of a charity,

you’d want to look donors in the eye when they come round to the office and

say ‘see, look, we give as MUCH as we can to food and help where it’s

needed’, which is why I’m not offering you some poncy mineral water,

biscuits or a whizzy £2,500 chair to sit in. There are basic legal

requirements to be taken care of such as health and safety but after that…

they should be cutting costs right to the bone.

 

Met a girl at the weekend with an absolutely superb concept for helping

people in these countries seriously and genuinely get out of poverty and

improve their situation. I hope to help her out if there’s an opportunity

to do so.

 

there=92s an opportunity

to do

Done