WAITROSE
Written by James Ward
On Saturday I went to Waitrose, as I am perfectly entitled to do.
In Waitrose, they have scheme called “Community Matters“. When you buy something in store, you are given a small green token along with your receipt. You can then place that token in one of three boxes, each relating to a local charity. Each store is allocated £1000 (£500 for convenience stores) and the money is then distributed to each charity in proportion to the number of tokens each charity receives:
The local charities are nominated by customers by filling out a form in store.
These were the three charities which were featured on Saturday:
1st OLD MALDEN SCOUTS
1st Old Malden Scouts meets every week in Worcester Park with boys and girls aged 10-16, and our Scouts have fun! They take part in indoor and outdoor activities that challenge them to do their best and earn badges.
THE MOTOR NEURONE ASSOCIATION
Surrey Branch
The Motor Neurone Disease is a rapidly progressive terminal illness that kills five people every day in the UK.There is currently no cure or effective treatment and the average life expectancy from diagnosis is just 14 months.
BOBTAILS
THE RABBIT AND GUINEA PIG RESCUEBobtails rescue centre has been helping rabbits and guinea pigs for over ten years.
It was started with the purpose of re-homing the small loveable animals that were often abandoned and left in boxes when their owners moved home, or when the novelty wore off and the children grew up and lost interest or time to care for them.
Now, I’m not saying that I hate boys and girls between the ages of ten and sixteen or that I think guinea pigs deserve to be put in boxes when their owners leave home or anything like that, but I think it’s quite obvious that the Motor Neurone Disease Association are the most deserving cause of the three, and this is also clearly what the majority of Waitrose customers think as well as they received significantly more green tokens. I have added yellow lines to show the level of tokens in each box as it’s not all that clear in the photo because of the angle of the photo:
But quite a lot of people did vote for Bobtails. Hundreds of people voted for Bobtails. Hundreds.
I suppose you could argue that as the money is distributed proportionally, maybe it’s right for a few people to vote for Bobtails, that way they get some money at least (and even though they claim that “the small animals are not as cheap or low maintenance as most people think”, they do basically just eat some bits of lettuce or whatever, it’s not like their diet is based on eating diamonds) but I think this shows the flaw at the heart of democracy. Ideally, the public should be denied the opportunity to express their opinions on anything and all decisions should be made by me.
JAMES WARD: I LIKE BORING THINGS 
Maybe all the tokens for Bobtails were left by Barry Sarll?
I have long believed that all charities should be outlawed and replaced with a single organisation called ‘Charity’ to which people could donate as much or as little as they wanted to. ‘Charity’ would then plough all the money into solving either the most lethal (or most harmful*) problem, e.g Cancer, one by one. Thus, when cancer was cured, ‘Charity’ could then move on to curing the next most lethal (or most harmful*) problem e.g Heart Disease. This way, all diseases would be cured, one by one. Obviously I would be the Chairman of ‘Charity’ and would be solely responsible for deciding what to cure next – I would ensure that no money was ever given to Animal Charities.
*Most harmful in this case means ‘Causes most human suffering’ e.g emotional distress as well as lethality. This could be subjective, but as with all of Charity’s decisions, it would be taken by me.
Can you please provide a top ten?
Was it you putting rabbits in boxes and moving house Lewis?
Generally when called upon to assign my token I give it to the least popular charity because that is what I do, unless I feel particularly one way or the other.
You couldn’t be more wrong about this.
The suffering of animals is more poignant – and therefore worse – than human suffering, because the animals don’t understand why they’re suffering. A rabbit that’s been left in a box to die of exposure doesn’t understand why it’s suddenly so cold and lonely. Stephen Hawking understands his situation very well.
Also, Bobtails has a proven track record of success. It has repeatedly demonstrated the ability to find a rabbit in a box, take it out of the box, sterilise it, then put in a large space (sometimes with some other rabbits) and clean it regularly. The Surrey branch of the Motor Neurone Association hasn’t cured even one case of motor neurone disease. So donating to Bobtails is better value. I believe in payment by results.
The general public doesn’t ALWAYS vote for the saddest and most in-need option. Look at the lib-dems.
I like animals more than I like people in general. Does that make me a monster?
Also I really like that you have a wordpress blog. Blogger is always hell to comment on. Well done James ‘James Ward’ Ward
Well I’d have gone for Bobtails, but then I do own two rabbits. And they are bloody expensive to look after.
Ah, but Bobtails are stuck in a feedback loop that actually means that your money could actually be making more animals homeless. That there are rescue centres in existence allows the frivolous consumer to make their purchase in the knowledge that, if the aftercare becomes too much, there will be an organisation of middle-aged women only too happy to ‘rescue’ their unwanted small mammal, and look after it as a substitute for their now departed children.
Hence the feedback loop. If there were no rescue centres, there would be more responsibility with the public to ensure that their selected fluffballs really were for life. Less people would buy them in the first place, and everyone would save a bit of money.
In our Waitrose, they always pick 3 charities with the same theme, so in the months with dumb animal charities, you get a choice of 3 dumb animal charities… similarly, in the months with rich kids’ sports clubs, you get a choice of 3 different clubs for kids with rich parents. I’d prefer it if they gave us a genuine choice like in your Waitrose! ;)
Whilst the distribution of funds is proportional to the number of green counters in the boxes, the distribution of counters to people is a flat, 1-counter-per-transaction arrangement. This opens the interesting possibility that if you felt very strongly that a particular charity should win, instead of doing your weekly shop in one trolley-load, you could go round and round, buying every item on your list one by one and getting a green token for each checkout.
I’m not sure if this a common problem for Waitrose, but it would be interesting to know if the system is being abused in this way.
In my local Waitrose, they sometimes provide more than one token, offering the opportunity to use the AV system. That said, if you think about it, you have the potentially to effectively make your vote irrelevant, if you vote for all 3.
Not strictly true.
Assume box A has 300 tokens, box B has 200, and box C has 500 tokens before you place your votes.
The current distribution of cash is as follows:
A: 30%
B: 20%
C: 50%
Now if you were to add a token to each, the new totals would be 301, 201, and 501 respectively. This gives a dramatically different percentage split:
A: 30.00997%
B: 20.03988%
C: 49.95015%
Assuming the cash being distributed was £1000, box C would now get 50p less!!
James, I just read the entire nine-part 1000s OF USES saga, parts 1 to 9, finishing at https://iamjamesward.wordpress.com/2009/12/15/1000s-of-uses-part-9-%E2%80%93-and-merry-christmas-to-you-too/
I was frankly more than a little disappointed at the lack of closure.
Was that it? You exchanged Christmas cards then drifted apart, like ships in the night that have not been blu-tacked together? What happened about the lists she promised you?
Olli Miekka postulated:
That is not true at all. If you add a vote for each candidate, then you raise the lower candidates to a higher proportion of the total votes, and lower the higher candidates. Consider a simple case where there are two candidates, one with one token and one with three. If you have two tokens and give one to each, then they have two and four tokens respectively. The leading candidate still leads, but now has only twice as many votes as the trailing candidate rather than three times as many.
You should consider the utility of the contribution. £100 to Scouts or Rabbit/Guinea Pigs could make a huge difference, whereas it’s a drop in the ocean for motor neuron disease.
My problem with the Waitrose charity boxes is that I can’t work out what criteria I need to actually be given a green token. Spend £50 – they give you a token. Spend £100 – no tokens at all. I’m not sure it would be quite the thing to challenge the cashier and say “please could I have a token?” It was not always thus. I’d always get at least one token, sometimes 3. But now – they’re being terribly tight-fisted about their charity tokens & I don’t like it.
Today I spent £52 in Waitrose and received a token, which I donated to the chairty for the deaf. The other option was allotments.
I reckon the Motor Neurone Disease Association won the PR war here by including the average lifespan expectation from diagnosis, which certainly gave me pause for thought. I do enjoy comparing the level of tokens in the two Waitroses that I frequent, as I think they’re an interesting indicator of priorities for the clientele. Oh, and I have the same problem as Helen, as I can’t predict when I get a token. I have also noted that Rickmansworth Waitrose are a bit more generous with tokens than Ruislip.
It baffles me that more people don’t give to humanitarian and aid organisations. Children and adults die for lack of basic amenities, that could be easily paid and provided for – as well as from diseases that we already know how to cure! We could save millions of lives by giving loads of money to reputable aid organisations. But then I think it’s precisely because of it’s ‘millions’ of people that people find it unrelatable. Global poverty seems such a big, unwieldy problem. But then, one more person alive because of a donation is better than nothing…
Also it’s bizarre how many people eat battery chickens but give to animal welfare charities.
Best, Kate