RNID - Co-op "Charity of the Year"!

Now that RNID have been chosen as charity of the year, not by deaf people, of course, but by the CO-OP (who didn’t ask us, of course,) they have launched a fund raiding pack with details of what the money will pay for. They have left out a few details, so I have helpfully filled them in for you at the end of the list.

£50 Provides a basic toolkit for a Hear to Help volunteer to show new hearing aid users how to maintain and clean their hearing aid.

£100 To visit someone in their home and talk to them about making the most of their hearing aid and how to maintain it for themselves.

£250 To visit five people in their homes for a quick hearing aid check and a chat.

£500 To carry out thirty hearing aid maintenance tasks, such as battery changes, at community centres

£120,000 To pay the hearing chief executive’s salary for one year.

£160,000 To pay the salary of 2 hearing members of the first division of the senior management team for one year.

£210,000 To pay the salary of 3 hearing members of the second division of the senior management team for one year.

£490,000 To pay the salary of the all hearing senior management team for one year.

Please bear in mind that the above are conservative figures using the bare minimum according to RNID’s annual report and financial statements for 2008, page 25.

As Fintan has pointed out in his blog, all the things for deaf people in that list are already available on the NHS free of charge. So the taxpayer is being asked to pay again for something that they already fund.

The next time you are accosted at the Co-op by people in fancy dress and pyjamas wielding buckets and asking you to toss your loose change in, point out that you have enough trouble covering Sir Fred Goodwin.