OK unless you have been without TV or radio for the last couple of days
you will know about this disaster in the Indian Ocean.
There is a main charity umbrella organisation now set up to take
donations - 1 alone would do a lot in food/clean water for someone
affected. It is Christmas, even if all you can spare is a 10......
0870 -6060 900

OR online visit www.dec.org.uk to donate online

*** Further announcement - banks etc will NOT be charging the usual clearing fees for donations made by credit card***
***Lastly it was announced today that the POST OFFICE will take cash or cheques
over the counter as donations***

To briefly mention methods of Contribution on-line and some benefits. I made a contribution to Medicin sans Frontiere (UK) online to their Indian ocean appeal and they pointed out on their web page that if it was not an anonymous contribution but from a UK Taxpayer, a donation of 25 would to them be worth 32-50 under gift aid charities arrangements. The web was quick, secure , and an acknowledgement was received automatically and transaction was debited to my account within 24 hours. So on-line I think is good.

I did much the same via the Oxfam site which similarly impressed me with the info given about Gift Aid - i received a nice email from Oxfam and overall the transaction went through very smoothly and securely. I read this today http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/4140823.stm ....I still feel numb.

Im making a donation this month and ready to carry on for the foreseable future as i get my wages. This has to be for the long term, i urge others to join me and many others.

Here is a link to the ICRC (RedCross) portal web site:-

http://www.familylinks.icrc.org/home.nsf/home/webfamilylinks

It has links to various other sites, including the tsunami affected areas:-

Importantly, it is now listing NAMES OF MISSING PERSONS - and their other personal details and it should be an excellent site to assist in re-establishing contact with loved ones.

It says, "Select the country or region which concerns you, and click on the appropriate link." and covers

Bay of Bengal (Sri Lanka, Indonesia, Thailand, India - and other local countries.)

Somalia, Haiti, Gulf 2003 (the Iraq conflict), Angola, Liberia - Sierra Leone, Kosovo, Bosnia and Herzegovina and 'All Other Countries'

What an amazing amount of money from Germany

Germany increases its aid pledge to tsunami victims from $27m to $670m - becoming the biggest contributor to the relief effort

UK Prime Minister Tony Blair says the UK government will spend "several hundred million" dollars on relief and reconstruction efforts in the coming weeks

BBC News

Do we know if donations Gift-Aided (28% uplift by HMG (lower rate tax) is to be part of that which HMG says is to be paid by them (ie of the 350M) or can we expect that to be part of the individual contributors uplift?

No idea namreh3 - I've just updated the header - banks are NOT charging clearing fees
on donations made by credit card.

Well done folks, they need every penny and then some!

I already use gIft aid for monthly donations, and I would recommend anyone here using that method too for their favourite charities.

It saves you having to remeMber, and they claim tax back from Prudence!!!