I have been paying into this charity for a few years now. I got a notification from my bank saying they had cancelled the direct debit? Did a bit of investigating and found this
What a bunch of bastards 
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That’s a low trick by anyone’s standards. Scum 
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Is it me, or is there a specific question not being asked?
Where the money actually go?
That is a very good question @DCS222
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I have had real issues with ‘Charities’ including the likes of the army benevolent fund, SSAFA, etc and now refuse to give to any of them. Even more so when checking their CEO and management salaries. No such issues with the VVA I hasten to add.
Investments and payments charities make and even the offices, shops and units they pay rent for. I see our local Blood Bikers lounging around a donations paid for quite expensive industrial unit making tea every Saturday.
I don’t attend any Disinterested Gentleman’s Rides/Movember after seeing how much money their companies have stashed away. It’s all supposedly for men’s prostate cancer but not once (even though I am of the age), not bloody once have they offered to stick their finger up my arse to check.
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I can understand your views and stance on this, @Iron , but I’d urge you not to tar all charities with the same - understandably - cynically stiff-bristled brush!
South West Blood Bikes - the BB charity I’ve just left (because of my personal, fundamental disagreement with current operational interference from the charity’s Chair-person) does not (and never has had) ANY paid staff … none, zero, nix, zilch, nada - though how long that might last is, I personally suspect, a moot point.
Similarly, Yeovil FreeWheelers EVS - the BB charity I’ve just joined having left SWBB, has NO paid staff and, as the oldest operating Blood Bike Group in the UK, also never has had!
Neither group has (to my knowledge) any “paid for quite expensive industrial unit” or private/rented office space and, as likely as not, neither has sufficient volunteers to warrant the luxury of space for volunteers to lounge around.
I know that SWBB has been provided with free space for storage of operational motorcycles in various industrial units across Devon but there’s definitely NO place that you could or would be lounging around in ANY of them and the only real benefit is that the charity gets ‘secure storage’ FoC, access rights and abilities 24/7/365 and the ability to wash the bikes down when needed.
I can empathise fully with your views on the DGR. Seems to me it’s become a commercial enterprise dressed up (geddit?) as a charitable cause. And I don’t doubt that SOME of the money goes to charity but nor do I doubt that a lot of it doesn’t!
Any road up meduck, PLEASE don’t let the commercialisation of (some) charities - especially Blood Bikes - deter you from giving to those (few?) that retain the core principles of the movement and operate as 100% charity funded and run.
BTW, do you REALLY want someone to provide a DRE for you? I know a guy … 
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Sorry, deleted it - probably best…
Nor I after they dismissed my speedy for not being " classical" enough. F@ck 'm.
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I see your angst there @Iron although I suppose if they haven’t had a call there’s no point in riding round in circles to make themselves look busy and use up fuel. Our HQ at Surrey and London branch was an unused scout hut close to the blood bank we collected from, we had one as it created a central meeting place to have inductions in and it meant that volunteers from outside London had a base so they didn’t have to waste their money traveling in and out when on duty, I suppose they ‘lounged’ about in it too when not out on a run. Anything to keep a volunteers running costs down as we pay for our own fuel and running costs when volunteering on our own vehicles. Unfortunately we weren’t lucky enough to have a place donated to us so we had to lose it due to the running costs, which the charity had to pay and the pain of red tape for using it overnight were getting too much. We now don’t have one and possibly have lost a few volunteers because of it. Bloodbike charities don’t have paid staff and as I said a lot of the running costs come out of our own pockets. Not a dig at your post but hopefully explains that we are not in the “Fat Cat” run charity category.
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Our local DGR let any old rabble in, sportsbikes etc. The usual excuse is " Oh! I couldn’t get my classic started this morning!"
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Bloody hell, I need to calm down a bit. Deleted this one too.
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I do that quite a bit these days too.
Act in haste, repent at your leisure
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I toyed with going to the DGR, but read the requirements and, without something vaguely classic, no waistcoat or checked suit, I decided they must be a bunch of posers!
Didn’t go… obviously!!
As for charities… mostly begin at home. 