Our weekly round-up of interesting and outlandish information, collected from the corners of the charity sector.

A PC possessed, and other excuses

Diary has nothing but respect for the fine people over at the Charity Commission. Their task is often a thankless one and yet they get on and do it to the best of their collective ability with grace, dignity and poise.

Yet Diary often can't help but think that, very occasionally, Commission employees can be a bit, well… serious.

Diary is happy to report however that it was wrong about this.

If you work in the charity sector and you haven’t read the Charity Commission’s sample list of excuses for not filing accounts on time, then you really should. Some of them are hilarious.

While it’s almost impossible for Diary to pick just one favourite from this list, it’s quite hard to beat: “I couldn’t file my accounts because computers are satanic.”

Think about that for a moment. Let it sink in. “Computers are satanic”. Satanic! Diary recently read something in the Guardian which suggested that a combination of computers and sitting down at work are killing us all, but even then the author of that piece never once suggested that the humble PC was satanic.

The word 'satanic' evokes images of pagan rituals, pentagrams scratched into blood-flecked flagstones with cracked finger nails and projectile vomiting. Surely there’s nothing satanic about Microsoft Word, Google Chrome or the humble Qwerty keyboard?

However, Diary does understand where this person was coming from when it comes to email inboxes left unattended over the festive period.

Another gem down near the bottom of the list is: “My boot came open on the motorway and the papers went down the M1.” Well, we’ve all been there. Boots are notoriously difficult to properly close and the M1 is no place for anyone with joy in their hearts and a car full of important, financial paperwork to tarry any longer than they must.

Special mention must also go to the final excuse on the list. An excuse made even better because, in hindsight, it’s not really an excuse at all: “The Commission also received one set of incomplete accounts with bite marks.”  

Diary was too afraid to contact the Commission to ask whether the bite marks were animal or human…

While the list is hilarious, it comes with a sobering caveat that nearly a third of charities accounts filed are of “unacceptable quality”. It also makes clear that there are no excuses for not filing accounts on time.

Don't say you haven't been warned.

Eau de XTREME

Diary loves a good product launch. It's also partial to things that smell good.

At the nexus of these two loves comes the news that Help for Heroes has launched a new fragrance called XTREME.

Created in consultation with “five ex-military heroes” XTREME is apparently a: “timeless fragrance peppered with hot spice and rugged smoky woods diffused with amber and a touch of leather”.

Now that sounds moreish.

It smells in other words like the kind of man Diary always wanted to be but, due to a genetic inability to grow any meaningful facial hair and a general distaste for physical activity and the great outdoors, never became.

XTREME is currently being stocked by Debenhams and, with £3 from every sale going to the charity, why not let Help for Heroes put a smell on you... Get it? 

Fundraisers, love thyself!

The Terrence Higgins Trust has launched a bawdy, new, pancake-based fundraising campaign for February, (try saying that out loud with a mouthful of marbles) called ‘Toss Off’.

It's the standard premise: raise funds by making pancakes, yeah, yeah. Everyone knows how these things work by now.

The best bit about ‘Toss Off’ is all the puns: ‘make sure your friends are there to lend a hand', ‘get tossing’, ‘how you toss off is up to you…’ It’s all good stuff!

While Diary takes slight umbrage with the branding - an orange frying pan emblazoned with ‘Toss Off’ in the middle and what can only be described as ‘flecks’ coming off of it – it’s all just a bit of fun and will raise money for a good cause.

As we in the sector all know, the best bit about a good fundraising campaign is the climax.

Happy 2016 everybody!