Chuggers

Chuggers are being banned from Gloucester. A chugger being someone who is trying to get you to set up a direct debit to a charity or send them a text to donate some money. They stand on busy shopping street in a line and pounce on passing shoppers waving their clipboards enthusiastically, whilst blurting out everything they can before the shopper disappears into the throngs.

I was in Newcastle recently and the main shopping street had a team from WWF raising money for wildlife conservation. Every 10 metres they had someone asking the same thing, would you be willing to donate, I think it was £5, via text message. I'm not much of a mobile phone fan and often go out without one, so I told the chugger, I did not have a phone on me, even if I did I doubt I would have just sent a text message there and then. The cheeky chugger then replied there is a Carphone warehouse just a few shops up and he would wait while I bought a phone!? I continued up the street and watched as the chuggers literally dived in front of people pointing at theio chests as they did so, (they all had these laminate covered flip chart style booklets around their necks). I heard one of them say as I was walking past "this animal die if you don't donate today" or something very similar. It was quite funny how over the top it was.

It was an absolute freezing day in January and you could see the poor chuggers were frozen stiff and it didn't seem as though they were having much success. So I got thinking how they could do better and not annoy the public as much. I concluded they would be much better off having a proper table with leaflets, information boards and standing in a friendly cluster, perhaps in one of the indoor malls. They could stand and talk with the public, show them literature and sign up members, tell them about promotions such as raffles and the latest campaign the charity is working on. They could even have a board with the text number to donate, so people if they want can in their own time stand and donate some money. So, perhaps this might be an alternative to the chugger method, and perhaps it might be more lucrative for the charities?

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/9123611/Backlash-against-chuggers-as-Gloucester-latest-city-to-ban-charity-muggers.html