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RSPCA accused of dirty tricks in Scotland
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http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/scotland/article5644077.eceThe Times wrote:The Scottish Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (Scottish SPCA), which is a completely separate organisation, challenged the RSPCA “to stop stealing food from the mouths of Scotland’s defenceless animals and tell the truth to the Scottish public”.
The Scottish charity, less than a tenth of the size of the RSPCA, accuses the English organisation of TV advertising in Scotland; a membership drive in Scottish supermarkets; and adverts on Scottish radio stations. It also believes the RSPCA are guilty of accepting legacies dedicated to "RSPCA Scotland" or "Scottish RSPCA".
Pretty unfair if this is true, they're really misleading folk into donating to a charity which won't help animals in their area.
Of course, all abandoned or mistreated animals need help but its only natural that people would want to help those in their own country first - hence why the RSPCA does much better in the UK than foreign animal charities.
Hopefully they'll now get their act sorted out and if they do advertise or rattle tins in Scotland, they make it clear to the public that the cash won't be used to help Scottish animals.
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But yeah, OP, I quite agree.
That is something I hadn't realised until tonight
How do they do that? I've often noticed an ad relevant to the topic at the bottom of the thread. Is related-ad allocating someone's job?
Last week I was on some politics thread about Palestine and the ad at the bottom was offering me the services of an Arab dating site.
I don't know how they do it. Or indeed if it works:)
But, yeah I've always known about RSPCA/SSPCA and RSPCC/RSSPCC (now Children 1st).
My Dad had a stroke a couple of weeks ago and the following week a pamphlet for The Stroke Association fell out of his Radio Times, he was gonna give them a wee donation until I told him about Chest, Heart & Stroke Scotland.
I also buy my Christmas cards from Alzheimer's Scotland rather than The Alzheimer's Association.
Its maybe petty but I want my charity cash to go to people in my community if I choose to support these causes. Thats not saying I don't support international aid charities too. I support both Oxfam & SCIAF.
Problem solved.
On a personal note I dont give to either. Too much of their donations are eaten up by admin and a few SSPCA homes have been criticised for being a little "rigourous" in their policies of putting animals to sleep. ie to ugly and not as appealing to adopters etc. There are better animal charities to donate to.
I remember reading something, a few years ago, about how the SSPCA lose a lot of donations and money because of this.
Yes but the point is that if everyone is donating to the RSPCA and the SSPCA are losing out because of that then there are going to be a lot of animals in Scotland who aren't getting the help and funding they need because the wealth is all in England and Wales. It's not about wanting to help animals in your country only - it's about the fact that the SSPCA miss out on funding and then there are animals here that aren't getting the care they need because the funding that was intended for them is going elsewhere.
It's not something I was aware of either. And although the RSPCA correctly state that they are a registered charity in England and Wales, I have to plead ignorance and say I never realised the meaning/impact of that in terms of activity in Scotland.
Not intentional, just something that should maybe be more obvious, although possibly most people already knew that and it's just me with my head in the sand
People want their money to go to certain areas, if that does not happen they can feel quite upset about it.
The bigger UK charities seem to have been taken over by bankers recently, or a version of that "Gordon Gecko" character.
Charitable greed is good seems to be their new direction.
My sentiments exactly.
I don't see why there has to be all these separate Scotland branches of everything.
People are not donating to the SSPCA because they think they are part of the RSPCA and the money will only be spent on lethal anaesthetics.
Incidentally, PDSA money raised in a PDSA shop in Birmingham is spent in Birmingham, money raised in Glasgow is spent in Glasgow, and so on all over the country. Money raised by the PDSA nationally is shared out nationally.
Well, as far as I am aware, the RSPCA, which was created in the 1800's, was only ever an England and Wales charity. So the SSPCA was inspired by the RSPCA and created to fill the Scottish void.
Fair enough
The article I read mentioned that legally they couldn't merge. The SSPCA is a reporting agency to the Crown Office in Scotland. The RSPCA does not perform this function in England or Wales.
They will probably be allocated automatically based on the words in the page.
This page mentions animals, charity and RSPCA so the DS web server matches that to a similar advert.
Yes, they're very different; people think just because they have similar names and are animal charities then they must work the same.