Hello readers, and may Society Diary invite you to bask in the warm of its latest round-up of the most important recent events in the charity sector. As autumn creeps in, the weather outside may be changeable but it is always sunny in SocietyDiaria (sorry if that sounds disgusting).
Prince Harry’s back, in case you hadn’t heard, and he’s been charming the pants off all corners of the UK (mainly Nottingham) by being a big, generous royal. He donated £1.1m of his hard-earned to Children in Need. Harry and his wife Meghan Markle’s Archewell Foundation then donated $500,000 (£369,000) to projects supporting injured children from Gaza and Ukraine.
Both were huge donations that rightly received acclaim for the Netflix stars and rolling, wall-to-wall coverage in the mainstream press. The only thing is they coincided with two less-publicised £150m donations by the Julia Rausing Trust and US-based Crankstart foundation to the National Gallery, the largest ever cash pledges to any museum or gallery. Philanthropy is not a competitive sport, of course, but that is a huge sum of money and Diary had no idea that a new wing could be so expensive.
‘Wear sorry’
Last Sunday, the world’s biggest half marathon (in terms of participants, not distance), the Great North Run, returned for another successful year. Thousands of runners headed to the north east of England to raise money for charities and cross the iconic Tyne Bridge as they put their months or training to the test.
However, the organisers appeared to forget where the run was taking place when they designed the around 60,000 medals given to runners at the finish line. The decorations showed a map with place names such as Newcastle, Gateshead and South Shields – so far so good – but they were superimposed onto an outline of the River Wear, not the Tyne. The event’s t-shirts also showed the wrong river.
Beautiful as it is, I can’t help but think this year’s Great North Run medal would be more appropriate with a map of Tyneside on it, rather than the streets of Wearside and The Stadium of Light 🤣🤣🤣 pic.twitter.com/SuCQRwP843
— Michael Bailey Photography (@jollybeggars) September 7, 2025
Some runners assumed the Wear’s outline was an intentional reveal that the next year’s run would be held in Sunderland instead but the organisers quashed those rumours, admitting the mistake and saying: “Wear sorry!”
Founder and president of the event Brendan Foster admitted that even he didn’t spot the error, despite living on the Tyne his whole life.
The former Olympian added: “It was a fantastic Great North Run, and we’re already looking forward to 2026, after we’ve brushed up on our geography.”
All’s well that end well, though, as some runners acted on the organisers’ advice that they had inadvertently earned a rare keepsake by listing their medals and t-shirts for thousands on Vinted.
Diary would hope that the proceeds might generate even more funds for charities but perhaps that is wishful thinking.
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