Tania Mason

Boris Johnson got more than he bargained for while launching a campaign to promote the work of volunteer groups in the capital, during the 25th anniversary of Volunteers Week. The BBC reported that the Mayor of London took a fall in the River Pool in Lewisham last Thursday whilst helping to remove litter and plants from the river as part of the ‘3 Rivers Clean-Up Project’. Johnson took to the water with the Quaggy Waterways Action Group to help clean the Ravensbourne river system, but had to be aided by onlooking volunteers when he stumbled and lost his footing. The ungainly Mayor was caught on camera wading through the shallow water, before falling chest-deep in a deeper stretch of the river.

NCVO chief executive Stuart Etherington claimed £11,997 in expenses last year and £10,394 the year before. Etherington was the first of the sector’s four main umbrella body chief executives to respond to Charity Finance’s request for publication of their last two years’ worth of expense claims. Acevo says it is yet to be persuaded of the value of doing so.

The NCVO has secured a £750,000 grant from the Big Lottery Fund to help it demonstrate how it and other infrastructure bodies benefit the sector. The umbrella body will share the grant with Triangle Consulting and the Third Sector Research Centre, who all bid jointly to BIG’s Basis programme for the funding. The money will be used to devise the Value of Infrastructure programme – a three-year, England-wide project that will, according to the NCVO, “identify the most effective ways for infrastructure agencies to communicate the value of infrastructure to sector organisations and improve the planning and monitoring of their work”.

Web 2.0 has been variously hailed as the vehicle that would revolutionise charity communications – and as a resource-intensive tool that would be monopolised by a few irritating comment whores and put your organisation’s reputation at risk. But while some charities have no doubt experienced the latter, the Blue Cross animal charity says its All About Pets networking site has proved an unqualified success.