Gift Aid

You know, so that reduction of admissions processing time, reduction of queuing times.

Gift aid conversion is up because we know if somebody books online, they're more likely to convert their purchase into a gift aid because we're not having to ask those additional questions on the desk, and wanted to have more time for the visitors that need to still come in and ask the questions at the admissions desk.

They still, you know, they, they c- they can't book online, so they want to come in and talk to us.

So the, the aim is if you can book online, and there's benefits to booking online, and we get the gift aid conversion, do that.

But then if you can't, that's fine.

We've now got more time because we're not doing manual Tescos and manual upgrading passes from a day ticket to an annual pass.

Um, we run a couple of appeals in the year, uh, at harvest and in March at our anniversary service.

And then the final source of income is from Gift Aid.

If you're a, a UK taxpayer, you're entitled to claim Gift Aid or, and you can offer that to the church.

So if you give a gift to the church, you can sign a Gift Aid form, and we can claim that Gift Aid for the church.

What's Gift Aid, Gary, about tw-

It's 25% on top

... 25% on top of your gift.

Doesn't cost you anything.

Yeah, it went down for about an hour.

But I did it, and all in all, with Gift Aid, we raised £97,000.

Mate.

I know.

sure.

yeah there you go um i think there's a chance he might win with that amount of entries um but yeah so the total now as it stands is 3584 pounds which is about 600 pounds more than last year and then when you add gift aid on and the gift aid is 746 pounds and 59 pence We are well over 4,200, 4,300 pounds.

It's unbelievable.

It is unbelievable the amount of money we have raised through a community.

But even worse than that is the timing.

Because as all of this is coming out, the British tax system is quietly still sprinkling gift aid like confetti on donations to treat Israeli soldiers just back from following their genocidal orders in Gaza.

Because nothing quite says justice like a congratulatory handshake and a little tax sweetener courtesy of the British government for those poor, poor IDF soldiers.

Why are we paying to help the mental health of IDF soldiers returning from Gaza when we can't even enable British people to seek justice for their loved ones who lost their lives at the hands of this same IDF? Why is Britain sitting on its evidence like smelg on a pile of gold? And how many times does Israel get to mark its own homework in another sham of an investigation that is obviously anything but independent before we all admit this accountability charade is pure pantomime? So let's start with World Central Kitchen then.

The UK charity UK Turmed confirmed that it made a restricted grant to Israel's Yehalim Foundation for PTSD treatment.

Yehalim's own fundraising material includes a therapeutic programme for soldiers returning from Gaza, and the recipient organisation says it supports people serving in, or who have served in, the Israeli military.

Donations made through British channels could qualify for gift aid.

And that's not just a little tick box that's optional on a charity forum.