Chugging through the shoppers

As the festive period is upon us, people are flocking to the high streets across Britain and although they are watching their pennies a lot more, shopping still remains to be one of Briton's favourite past times.

So where do charities fit into this spending splurge that we all indulge in? The technique charities have adopted in an attempt to receive more monthly donations is what's fondly known by the general public as "chugging"; charity mugging!

From a distance, all can see why charities would put ambassadors on the street to try and gain passers by support and most importantly money, but when we become those passers by, desperately trying to run our errands, they become horribly annoying.



Is it the idea that we know what they want before they've opened their mouths? Maybe that we really are in a hurry and have absolutely no ability to spare a minute for these charity workers?

For me, I find the idea of giving my bank details to a stranger on the street makes me reluctant to stop. Seriously they could be anyone, and I know from personal experience that the majority are getting paid according to how many people they get to sign up for regular donations. So this desperate, begging and even harassing nature of the chugger is surely working against charities..... WRONG! They are still raising millions for their specific charities each year.

But the concept is deeply flawed and although charities need to pull out all the stops in such hard financial times, there must be another way.

Research has been done into the work of charity street fund raising, read more about the fundamental flaws of the job which are not going unnoticed by an ever growing apathetic general public.