Good job I came back to this as I suddenly had a thought earlier that my sense of humour doesn't always travel well and too much contact with hospitals and nurses has maybe given me a rather callous outlook on things
The Charity Commission site makes everything sound so complicated i'm surprised anybody gets as far as setting something up before their own brain explodes although saying that there are a lot of organisations with a charity number where you go WTF how are they a charity?
I prefer to giving money to the RNLI and Sally Army as it is something where the donation actually seems to get as far as helping the cause rather than things like the latest disaster appeal where I do get the feeling that a lot of things are instantly set up to milk the gullible as per my post and only a small portion of any donations gets as far a doing anything to help the victims. Even organisations like Oxfam seem to have turned into a huge business with a massive marketing department rather than a direct way of helping someone less fortunate than yourself.