Shelter UK has just released their great selection of festive Christmas card packs. Each unique design really encapsulates a different festive image, with each card coming in a pack of 10 with prices starting at just £2.99 – that’s only 29p per card.

There’s a great selection of wonderful designs, including -

• Majestic 3 Kings
• Picasso Dove
• Kings of the Orient
• Tree of Lights
• Star of Wonder
• Resting Robin (pictured)

These great cards are not only a fantastic charity gift to send festive salutations this Christmas, but also a great way to help raise funds for Shelter UK. Their tireless work to help the homeless and people with housing difficulties can only continue thanks to the generous support of the genral public and their kind donations.

Help Shelter UK This Christmas

There is a number of ways to help support Shelter this festive season. Carol singing, making a donation or sending Shelter Christmas cards. By supporting Shelter, you will be making a difference to the lives of the homeless and people with housing difficulties in the UK.

> > click here to make a donation to Shelter UK

Other top charity gifts

Shelter UK recently asked a whole host of famous artists and cutting edge designers to design a ‘House of Cards’ to auction and help raise money for their charity work. Featuring designs from Vivienne Westwood, Rankin, Damien Hirst and David Bailey, the auction attracted buyers from across the globe and helped raise over £100,000 for Shelter.

Held between 24th-28th September at the Haunch of Venison gallery in London, visitors placed silent bids on the unique collection, with each piece creating offering a unique representation of their chosen playing card.

Shelter’s chief executive, Sam Younger, said -

This exhibition has enabled us to engage new audiences with our House of Cards campaign in a creative and innovative way. We’ve had a fantastic response from the public and would like to thank all the artists involved for the contributions they have made. The money raised through the auction will help Shelter continue to provide vital advice and support to the growing number of households across the country in housing need. With an estimated 65,000 homes facing repossession this year and almost 1.8 million stuck on council house waiting lists, there can be no doubt that Britain is in the midst of a housing crisis.

The final 20 pieces went to a live auction on the final night, with bids flooding in from across the globe to secure one of these once in a lifetime collectors items. There is even the chance to buy a replica pack of the final exhibited cards from Shelter.  A small amount of limited edition cards are available for £70, which come in an exclusive presentation box.

If you fancy a pack of these cards you’ll have to hurry, as there is only 1000 of these packs available to the general public, with all profits from the cards going to Shelter UK.

> > Click here to order limited edition playing cards

> > click here make a donation to Shelter UK

Shelter UK’s latest fund raising initiative is Cake Time, an absolutely delicious way to raise funds for people with housing difficulties. Simply bake or buy your favourite cake and share it with friends, family or colleagues, with a sponsorship donation for each tasty slice.

All you have to do is sign up to be a fundraiser and Shelter UK will send you a complimentary pack full of fantastic recipes, stickers, party invitations and posters to promote your event. Why not try out one of the many celebrity recipes to woo your guests, even the Queen of the Kitchen, Jane Asher, has added her own secret cake recipe!

Then all you have to do is invite your guests round for tea and cake between 21-27th March and ask them to make a small donation to Shelter for sharing the good fortune of having such a wonderful cook in their midst. (you could always buy a cake and pretend that you made it!)

TV Presenter, Amanda Lamb, said -

Put your worries behind you and take some time out to feed your senses. Cake Time is a great way to hone your baking skills whilst raising money for homeless and badly housed people in the UK. If you’re a bit of a novice in the kitchen and can’t tell your marzipan from your icing, you can still get involved. Anyone can do it as there are lots of scrumptious, easy to follow recipes.

So why not help Shelter UK raise funds whilst having a delightful, traditional British tea party, there’s never been a tastier way to help people in need.

> > click here to find out more about Shelter UK’s Cake Time

> > click here to make a donation to Shelter UK

Super group Radiohead have agreed to donate a song to Shelter UK to be used in a forthcoming TV advert for the homeless charity. Radiohead have said they were pleased their music may help to encourage people to donate to the charity.

Radiohead said-

‘We have always been big supporters of Shelter and believe that now more than ever Shelter urgently needs help and support to keep up its vital work. Videotape’ is the perfect track to support the ad so we decided to let Shelter use it in their new ad in the hope that it will help make a real impact.’

With the housing market on the verge of collapse, Shelter UK’s resources are being stretched to the limit.

Now, more than ever, they need your help.

> > click here to make a donation to Shelter UK

Read our Shelter UK review

The Shelter UK big build up to Christmas is here and they want you can be a part of it. With the credit crunch biting the nation, Shelter will be working harder than ever to help families in desperate need to keep the roof over their heads.

The build up to Christmas is an exciting time, but not so happy for thousands of families around the UK facing the festive season in bad housing or homeless. 1.6million children will spend Christmas living below the poverty line, whilst 57,000 households in England alone will face the festive season homeless living in temporary accommodation.

Last Christmas, Shelter’s free national housing advice helpline answered an average of 101 calls each day.

The helpline will again be open over the Christmas period, as it has been for the last 10 years, to provide desperately needed support and advice.

Help Shelter UK This Christmas

There is a number of ways to help support Shelter this festive season. Carol singing, making a donation or sending Shelter Christmas cards. You can even add your company logo to our Christmas e-cards and show your clients and partners that you support Shelter, and that you are making a difference to the lives of people in difficulties.

> > click here to make a donation to Shelter UK

Read more about Shelter UK

The Shelter charity has welcomed the Government’s pledge to tackle problems in the housing market and protect people by building more affordable homes.

Proposals to increase the exemption level for stamp duty and help first-time buyers onto the housing ladder were applauded, alongside the Governments commitment to help those who fall into arrears or are on the brink of losing their home.

The Government has pledged to invest £100m to improve the safety net for those in mortgage arrears, which could help prevent up to 10,000 repossessions. The introduction of a new mortgage rescue scheme will also help up to 6,000 vulnerable homeowners.

These changes are welcomed, but with an estimated 45,000 homeowners set to lose their property this year, this campaign will not fully avert the huge scale of the current housing crisis. Shelter intends to continue their campaign for further measures to tackle these issues and will looking out to influence the pre-budget report.

With your help, Shelter will try and support the hundreds of thousands of people priced out of the property market and the 1.6 million households stuck on council housing waiting lists.

> > click here to make a donation to Shelter

> > click here to find out more about the work of Shelter

Co-operative Bank have launched a new charity credit card which will donate money to the homeless charity – Shelter.

The bank will donate £20 to the charity when first issued, and then a further 25p for every £100 spent. This money will then be put towards projects to benefit the homeless and people with housing problems, with Shelter expecting up to 2,000 people to apply for their credit card.

The Co-operative’s Shelter Bank card is the latest addition to the charity credit card family, alongside the WWF, RSPCA and the Bono organised American Express Red. All of these cards offer an initial one-off donation, with a proportion of the cash then spent on the card put back into the charity. It’s an excellent way for both banks and consumers to give something back and help a number of good causes in the process.

Another great way to help raise funds is to buy a plot of land at the virtual Shelter Build a City website. There you can pick your own bespoke vitrual property and advertise your business, or even buy one for a present for someone. This is a great place to advertise your business, whilst making a donation to help out people with homeless people and those with serious housing difficulties.

>> View charity credit cards

Shelter’s latest housing donation initiative is the Virtual City, where from as little as £5 you can buy a plot of ‘virtual land’ and advertise your business. With 28 drop in centres receiving 45,000 phone calls a year, your donations help to provide the expert housing advice that needs to be given to over 170,000 people.

Your virtual property can be of any size and shape you desire, with even a bespoke service offering an exact virtual replica of your business building. Prices range from £5 for a piece of parkland to £1000 for a skyscraper, with ex Red or Dead owner Wayne Hemmingway’s featured house designs available for as little as £20 (the real thing may cost you a bit more!). Also available are Tudor and Victorian style houses, shops, pubs, restaurants, hotels and department stores There are even Windmills available, because as Shelter well know, everyone at one time or another has wanted to live in a Windmill!

All you need to do is visit the virtual map and find yourself a nice plot of land, then make your choice of donation to purchase your dream home. You then have the option of uploading a photo and leaving a message when people click on your property. Also you have the ability to leave a webpage link, offering excellent advertising opportunities for your charitable donation. You can then send a link to friends who can come and ‘live’ in your part of the City, everybody needs good neighbours!

Shelter cannot exist without your donations, and with only 1% of each pound going to management and admin, you know your money is being spent wisely. So go buy that dream house you always wanted, and remember that the money you’re spending is also helping the people around you find housing too.

> > click here to find out more about Virtual City

> > click here to make a donation to Shelter

“Like a man treading water” was one description of Alistair Darling’s first ever Budget at the House of Commons yesterday. That may have been so, and even though the delivery was as dull as dishwater, there were still some reasons to be upbeat.

Child Poverty, and it’s eradication, featured extremely highly on the Government’s agenda, and was one of the main issues for the coming year. Changing rules for housing and council tax benefit starting in 2009 mean parents will be better off in work than on benefits Child benefit payments for the first child is to increase to £20 a week from April 2009, which is a year earlier than planned, with parents who are in work being rewarded further. Changes to tax credits meaning families with two children earning £28,000 a year will be better off by £130 a year.

The Government also plan to spend a further £8billion on affordable housing over the next 3 years. Sites have already been identified to build 70,000 new homes by 2020 on top of 40,000 new homes already planned by that date, putting the Government back on track with their plan to eradicate child poverty by 2020. Hand in hand with all the newly affordable property being built see’s a new stamp duty scheme on shared-ownership properties, with new owners not being required to pay the duty until they own 80% of the equity. All this seems admirable enough, but you do get the feeling the Government were forced into dealing with these issues sooner rather than later, mostly due to the ticking child poverty clock set by Mr. Blair and a certain Mr. Brown some years ago

“Not green enough!” was the cry from some enivornmental charities, but in fairness we may be about to see an unprecedented change. Next year’s Budget will feature a “Carbon Budget”, specifically designated to the U.K’s. target to cut emissions by 2022. The climate change levy, designed to encourage businesses to cut energy usage, will rise in line with inflation from April, with plans for 1m new jobs in environmental industries in the next two decades.

It was also stated that all non-domestic buildings will have to be zero-carbon by 2019, on top of the already announced target for all new homes by 2016, though whether this is possible remains to be seen, though the £20m in funding for the green homes initiative to help cut emissions and fuel bills may help. Plus a nice little incentive for buyers of emission-free apartments will be a saving of up to £15,000 in stamp duty tax payments.

As predicted, road tax prices will now be banded by what kind of gas guzzler you’re driving. You can expect to pay a much higher rate of duty in the first year for the most polluting car from 2010, but those with the lowest emissions will pay no tax in the first year. This seems fair, though the sense in hiking up air travel tax yet endorsing airport expansion seems a tad contradictory.

But Mr. Darling does seem to be doing his bit for the environment, though whether it is big enough remains to be seen. Saying “we are the first government anywhere in the world to introduce legal targets compelling us to take action to cut carbon emissions’ may sound impressive, but predicted figures claim the targets being put into place will only reduce carbon emissions by as little as 5% over the next 7 years.

It’s 10 years to the day that Tony Blair and Gordon Brown first promised to have halved child poverty by 2010, and guess what - the government needs to find at least £3billion more in tax credits and benefits to reach their predicted target. It seems like only last year (it was) that the then Chancellor Gordon Brown was promising sizeable increases in Working Tax Credit, and an above earnings increase in Child Tax Credit for 2008. Yet fast forward 12 months and Children’s Charity Barnardo’s already show a 200,000 rise in UK children living below the poverty line.

This put’s huge pressure on Chancellor Alistair Darling’s first budget today, who having just lost £500m due to the delay in added fuel tax shelved till the Autumn, is looking to put a sizable down payment on the money needed to halt child poverty. But any sum put forward will be a long way off the figure needed to keep up with previous Labour government pledges. Spokesperson for One Parent Families, Kate Bell, said: “we need evidence in this budget that Labour intend to keep their promise to halve child poverty by 2010. This may be tough spending for government, but it’s much tougher for the 1.5 million poor children living in one-parent families”.

The Government look to be spending a large proportion of it’s child spending on families with disabilities. Over 30% of families with disabilities live below the poverty level due to low benefits and lack of work. Currently all savings made by the Department of Work and Pensions goes straight back to the Treasury, but hopefully an agreement will be reached allowing them to keep some of the savings they accrue by finding work for the disabled. Current figures show that the Treasury gains £1.7m for every £1m spent by the Department of Work and Pensions on helping people into work.

Terry Rooney, leader of the Department for Works and Pensions, is calling for major changes in the benefits packages available for those on incapacity benefit, or deemed incapable of work in the long term. Although Mr. Darling appears to be pushing a large portion of his expendable budget towards the problem, but is this just another firefighting exercise caused by the empty promises of yesteryear?

>> Click here to support children’s charities