Category Archives: General

This holiday donating to charity makes someone else day memorable. This morning, as I emerged blinking from Chancery Lane station on my way to work, I was confronted by a young lady sporting a nylon tunic emblazoned with the words ‘Every Child’ and a fat clipboard full of Direct Debit forms. As I approached, she began to play out some ridiculous dumb show of desperation worthy of the sad clown in a cut-price circus and entreating myself and the guy walking immediately ahead of me to “Pleeeeeease stop and talk to me!” in pathetic, ‘can-I-have-a-pony-Daddy?’ tones. In response to her transparent and two dimensional plea, I fixed on my best chugger-proof thousand yard stare (they can’t catch your eye if you look through them!) and trundled blithely on. My fellow pedestrian, however, felt no such need for reserve in his response, calling out loudly “there’s a good reason why no-one’s talking to you, love, it’s because you’re a f***ing parasite!”

A crass and imbalanced response to a kind-hearted soul trying to make a difference, you might say; a callous dismissal of the efforts of a good, honest individual to make a difference to the cruel world we live in? Not so, say I! Let us take a moment to examine the economics of this new, self-made industry sector and see if there might actually be some mileage in this young man’s claim.

Some years ago, whilst I was still at university supplementing my student by loan working in a bar up to five nights a week and living in a shared house, one of my then housemates came home announcing that she had found ‘an amazing job’ which allowed her to work just one day a week and bring home more money than my five bar shifts used to earn. Intrigued, I asked for more details of this wonder job and sat back as my housemate launched into a breathless account of how she and her fearless new colleagues were out to save the world. “Firstly, she gasped, in a froth of self-congratulatory altruism, “the best thing about the job is that it’s working for charity!” So far, so good I thought; charity is good. “Basically, you go out with a team of people and you talk to people in the street and you ask them to sign up to donate money for your charity.” “Which charity is this?” I asked. “Oh, it could be a different charity every week, we work through an agency” she replied. At this point, alarm bells began to ring.

To cut a long story short, it transpired that my housemate was being paid around £9.50 per hour to stand in the street, harassing the general public into surrendering their direct debit details and donate to charity making, over a ten hour shift a daily total of £95, which was a pretty damn good take home for a days work for a 20 year old student. Add to that the fact that employment agencies of any sort levy a charge on top of this daily wage to the employer, in this case the charity, which can easily be equal to or even in excess of the actual wages paid to the employee. Lets be generous in this case and assume that the agency in question charges 30% on top of wage charges. That leaves a daily cost to the charity in question of £123.50. After a rushed mental calculation, I exclaimed to my housemate “wow, you must have to work really hard to pay for yourself; how many are you expected to sign up in a day?” “One” she replied, “at least while we’re new to the job, later on you’re expected to be better at it, the really good ones get four or five in a day!”. Four and five in a day sounds like a pretty low rate considering the cost; “how much are these four or five people donating?”; “about £3.50 a month on average”.

I was gobsmacked! I couldn’t help it, the calculator came out.

“I hate to piss on your parade,” I said, five minutes later “but at one signee per day for £3.50 a month, you’d need to work for 35 days straight, or seven full working weeks to bring in enough revenue from initial payments to pay your wages for a single day. To put it another way, the one person that you sign up today has to maintain this direct debit for just shy of three years before what you did today becomes profitable for the charity that hired you. I fail to see how this is a good thing you are doing.”

Two days later, my housemate returns from a second shift ‘chugging’, “we are raising awareness” she says, “increasing the public brand visibility of the charities we work for”. Sure you are, you’re raising my awareness of the fact that people in nylon tunics are to be avoided; you’re raising my awareness of the depths to which unscrupulous agencies and cash strapped students will stoop; you’re raising my awareness of exactly how much voluntarily donated cash intended for charity use gets siphoned off into the pockets of middlemen and smooth talkers. I fail to see how this is a good thing!

If you really want to donate to a charity, do it via their website.

Croydon J Hounslow works for an online dating agency

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A community services courses qualification can lead you to a career in community development roles. Once considered the last resort for job seekers, mass communication in the last decade has transformed into a serious career option for the youngsters today. It is a profit making industry today with as many as six media companies listed in the stock exchange, each of the company valued over Rs.10,000 million ($250 million). The current scenario is a far cry from about two decades ago, when the largest media company reported net profits of about Rs.50 million (a little over a million dollars). The growth of technology, government’s liberalized policies and the increased purchasing power of the expanding middle class and their changing life style has been the main driving force for this development.

In addition, the satellite channels, a series of Radio channels (FM) have also helped in the expansion. Every metropolitan city of India has its own various FM radio stations where several radio jockeys are working. Print media has also made a remarkable progress and dozens of Hindi, English and regional newspapers and magazines have come-up in the market. Today mass communication industry is not just limited to its country’s boundary but has reached globally. It also covers all the latest updates and current happenings around the globe. The other development in mass communication industry is advertising agencies. A number of big and small advertising agencies have come up in the market and there are multiple career options available for mass communication graduates. Needless to say that the growth in the industry has created an expanding job market for the industry, this in turn has been instrumental in setting up of institutes offering mass communication courses.

Mass communication course is a broad term which is an amalgamation of the study of all mass media that helps communicate with the public. Hence, this course includes within its purview the study of Journalism – Television or Radio Journalism or Print Journalism, Advertising and Public Relations, Marketing. With the broadening of the definition of mass communication in recent times, the courses now also include specializations like radio jockeying, event management, film making.

In India, mass communication has developed into a highly comprehensive field of study and at the same time offering a challenging and bright career prospect. The advent and the growth of electronic media perhaps has a large role to play in the increase in the popularity of the medium. It gives an instant recognition and fame to the reporters as compared to the faceless bylines of the print media.

Several institutes across the country, in the metros and in the smaller cities today offer mass communication courses at different levels. One can opt for a diploma, PG diploma, undergraduate, postgraduate and even doctoral level programmes. The eligibility criteria differ according to the level of course opted for. For diploma and undergraduate programs in mass communication, one should have passed the intermediate exam in any discipline. For PG diploma and postgraduate degree courses, Bachelor’s degree in any discipline is required, whereas for doctorate level course, Master’s degree in mass communication is mandatory.

Majority of the private run or government institutes offer all the streams that fall under the mass communication umbrella. But as the industry gets more demanding for better skilled professionals and the competition gets tougher, several institutes now focus on one of the mass communication subjects: be it journalism, advertising combined with management, film making etc. This focused approach perhaps helps the institutes to produce better skilled students.

Getting admission in the mass communication institute is also getting tougher as the competition hots – up. Most of the institutes that offer mass communication courses conduct an examination followed by personal interview as selection criteria. Students seeking admission to such courses require a more than average writing skill, good command over the language, a creative bend of mind in case of advertisements or film making and an interest in current affairs if it is in journalism.

Like any top ranking management institutes, most of the reputed institutes offering mass communication courses arrange for campus placements. In some of the top rated journalism colleges, media houses vie with each other for the first slot for campus placement to pick up the best students. Several of the institutes do include internship as part of the course that provides practical training to the students and exposure to the working of the industry. In several cases, the internship does turn into a job with the company.

While mass communication institutes have mushroomed all over the country, a students seeking admission into a course should do a thorough study before joining an institute. He or she should find out about the history of the institute, any affiliations to universities or well known organizations, the expertise and the experience of the faculty, the placement history etc.

Although the remuneration in the industry varies from one field of mass communication to the other, yet for beginners, on an average, the remuneration may range anywhere from Rs 20,000 to 30,000 per month and increases accordingly with experience and time. The remuneration also depends upon the institute from which the course has been pursued.

Students opting to making a career choice in this industry can take heart from the fact that the growth projection for the industry is bullish. According to a joint report by KPMG and FICCI, over the next five years, Media and Entertainment industry is projected to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 13 per cent to reach the size of US$ 24.04 billion by 2014. Some of the factors that will drive the growth in the next ten years will be digitisation, regionalisation, competition, innovation, process, marketing and distribution.

Sri Aurobindo Centre for Arts and Communication is a centre for creative learning in arts and communication. It conducts professional programmes in Journalism, Advertising and Public Relations, Television & Film Production, Audio Recording and Creative Photography.

Article Source: https://EzineArticles.com/expert/Archana_Srivastava/923613

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Office rubbish removal Sydney provide plastic bins in any offices to prevent garbage spill. Plastic bins are containers that are designed to hold waste till it is disposed off. These plastic bins are kept in all organization, houses and public places since the importance to control waste is important to communities all over the world.

Plastic bins are an important aspect of waste management as it helps in keeping institutions, home, public location clean and rubbish free. With the increase in awareness among people about the importance of keeping waste bins in every part of the city, home or office, the demand for waste bins have increased over the years. Public waste receptacles play an important role in promotion of sanitation in our streets and environment. While there are various materials that can be used as waste bins such as tin, wood etc, the demand for plastic waste bins are on the rise. There are several advantages of using plastic bins. Some of such advantages are:

Helps to keep the environment clean: It is not unknown how disposal in streets and other public places is leading to pollution of the environment. Hence it is best to dispose the waste in plastic waste bins that are kept in several places. The plastic bins can be emptied at regular intervals so that more waste can be collected. Because of disposing the waste in the waste bins the environment remains clean. Hygiene and cleanliness, the two important factors affecting a person’s life is taken care of when a plastic bin is used be it in public places or are home.

Helps in recycling : In many organizations where there are different types of waste, a plastic bin plays an important role of recycling. If several bins are used to segregate it according to its type, it will help in recycling maximum amount of waste. It is much easier to separate plastics, paper, cardboard, tin cans and other recyclates if it kept in separate boxes rather than putting it in on one box and separating it later. The plastic bin can even provide you with some additional financial benefits. This is because when some recycled materials such as cans, bottles, newspapers are collected you can resell those to local recyclers and get some financial benefits. Thus waste bin will help you to collect recyclable items that can later be sold.

Enhance appearance: plastic bins no longer come in boring shapes and colors. Having plastic bins around the house or any organization or public places helps in enhancing the appearance of the house. It not only helps the people to throw the litter away, with the colorful colors that they come in it enhances the look of the place where it is kept. Moreover, the plastic bins that are most commonly used in several places come in various shapes and size to cater to the requirements of the clients. They are also very light and can easily be carried from one place to another with ease and can be cleaned without any damage to color. Plastic bin manufacturers ensures that they use good quality plastic in building the plastic bins so that the waste bins are durable and need not be replaced frequently.

People are becoming increasingly aware of the importance of managing it and throwing it in proper place so that no damage is done to the environment. Plastic bin manufacturers are coming up with new ideas on the designs of plastic bins that can suit all your purpose.