Interesting news story on stem cell transplants for Type 1 diabetes

Note:
I am not medically trained and it is 13 years since I worked in this area. 
Single words below in bold italics are explained in the Jargon Buster at the end.

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The news story
London [as in Ontario, Canada] woman off insulin for Type 1 diabetes after a single dose of experimental manufactured stem cells (21 June 2025) CTV News
- read to the end for a cracking typo / correction :D

It's really exciting news and hopefully can be expanded to more people with Type 1 diabetes but, as is almost always the case, it's not a simple fix.

When I worked at Diabetes UK a question that came up frequently at any research talk I gave, or through our question and answering service, was along the lines of "Can't people with Type 1 diabetes just have their beta cells replaced with stem cells?"

Yes.... but...

Type 1 diabetes is an autoimmune condition
A person with Type 1 diabetes has an autoimmune condition in which their immune system selectively goes after and destroys the insulin-producing beta cells in the islets of their pancreas. Destruction is a gradual process but at some point there won't be enough beta cells to produce enough insulin (an essential hormone) and the person will start to show unavoidable symptoms of Type 1 diabetes, requiring daily insulin injections or use of an insulin pump. 

Their immune system has attacked their own insulin-producing cells. 

Using your own stem cells, or other cells, as a source of potential replacement cells
If a person with Type 1 had stem cells taken from their own body, the cells tweaked in some way to convert them to insulin-producing beta cells and then returned to the person's body I think there's a high chance that the immune system would attack these genetically-identical-to-the-last-lot-of-beta-cells in the exact same way. Possibly the cells would survive for a period of time before the autoimmune system got round to munching through all of them, but I'm fairly certain it would happen. 

Using cells from elsewhere
If you were to take or make beta cells, derived from stem cells or another source, from any other person you'd also have the problem of tissue rejection or organ rejection that happens whenever your immune system meets something 'foreign' (after all that is what it has evolved to do). 

For the autoimmune side of things I don't know if it's because the immune system has some objection to (or at least is triggered by) -

(a) beta cells in particular - perhaps there is some marker on the surface of the cell, e.g. a glycoprotein in the cell membrane to which the immune system 'takes offence' and so will attack any beta cell. An analogy to this might be a computer virus that attacks any PDF file.
or
(b) any cell that secretes insulin (so perhaps tweaking other types of cells to be able to produce insulin wouldn't solve the problem). An analogy to this might be a computer virus that attacks any file that has the word 'insulin' in it, whether it's in a doc, spreadsheet, PDF or reminder note to collect a prescription.

The need to suppress the immune system
The 'solution', such as it is, when giving anyone a donor organ (pancreas) or cell transplant (islets) is to accompany that with immune suppressing medication that stops the immune system from attacking the newly transplanted tissue. That's good but having your immune system suppressed is not an easy way to go through life (for example think back to the groups of people needing the most protection from Covid).

The news story about a stem cell trial
The news article above reports on an encouraging development in using an external ('allogeneic') source of stem cell-derived insulin-producing cells* to help people with Type 1 diabetes in Canada (Canadian scientists have been doing amazing work in Type 1 diabetes and transplantation research), where their diabetes was difficult to manage. This was a small trial with 14 patients.

The woman interviewed has been able to come off insulin for now (I don't know if that will be permanent) but she does have to take immune suppressing medicine for life (or for the length of time that the transplanted cells survive). The article also notes the death of two of the trial participants, one was possibly linked to immune suppression but the person died from infection following an unrelated surgery. The other death seems entirely unrelated to the trial as they died from dementia.

*the stem cells were used to make more than just the insulin-producing beta cells, so the end result was slightly more similar to the grouping of cells (islets) found naturally in the pancreas.

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Further reading
The news article (also linked above): London [as in Ontario, Canada] woman off insulin for Type 1 diabetes after a single dose of experimental manufactured stem cells (21 June 2025) CTV News

which is about the study reported here: Stem Cell–Derived, Fully Differentiated Islets for Type 1 Diabetes (20 June 2025) New England Journal of Medicine, DOI: 10.1056/NEJMoa2506549

and this paper has also been reviewed here: Can Stem Cells Cure Type 1 Diabetes? (10 July 2025) NEJM Journal Watch
"Phase 2 trial results look promising... Although the treatment potentially obviates some issues with pancreatic transplants (e.g., organ availability and surgical complexity), it still requires immunosuppression."

See also the section headed "Promising results from beta cell therapy trials in type 1 diabetes" in Diabetes UK's research news roundup for 3 July 2025.

Jargon buster
allogeneic / allotransplantation: 'allo' here means 'other' and refers to cells or organs being transplanted from someone else. Allogeneic just means 'contains material from someone that isn't you'.

glycoprotein - a molecule that contains a sugar element and a protein element. All sorts of molecules are found inside, within and outside the cell membrane. Some are used as a sort of 'flag' to say 'this is the type of cell I am'.

islets - 'islets of Langerhans' - groups of hormone-secreting cells scattered within the pancreas. Islets include beta cells which release insulin, and alpha cells that release another hormone glucagon. Both help to control the level of glucose in the blood.

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Anyway let's all enjoy the news site's correction - "The Edmonton Protocol involves cells from deceased organ donors, not diseased organ donors."

What a phrase - "The most valued image on Wikipedia Commons within the scope: peanut butter and jelly sandwiches"

For a work thing* I needed an image of a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and looked to Wikimedia Commons to see if someone had made one available under a Creative Commons licence. Yes! 

A peanut butter and jelly sandwich, made with Skippy peanut butter and Welch's grape jelly on white bread, by Evan Amos, published under a CC0 licence on Wikimedia Commons https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Peanut-Butter-Jelly-Sandwich.jpg

Scrolling down the page on which the photo is stored (to find the citation information I needed to credit the photographer) I came across this fantastic sentence - 

"This image has been assessed under the valued image criteria and is considered the most valued image on Commons within the scope: peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. You can see its nomination here."

I think the image actually only got 1 vote (the main one it was competing with got none but you can see the full range of PBJ images in the category here) so it's not necessarily a slam dunk, but the file is used on 'List of sandwiches' and, of course 'Peanut butter and jelly sandwich'. It's also used on other-language versions of Wikipedia including Erdnussbutter, Sándwich de mantequilla de cacahuete y jalea and Sendvič s arašidovým maslom a želé.

*There's a great video of a dad asking his two children to come up with very precise instructions to make a 'PBJ' sandwich. This and other variants are often used as a fun way to teach kids about computer algorithms and how steps must be followed precisely in the right order to get the result you want. Also that computers have to be told exactly what to do.

Job listings should display the salary or range - petition to UK parliament closes on 9 July 2025

Please sign this petition if you agree with it.

Legally require all job listings to show salaries upfront
https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/700482/

"Legally require all job listings to show salaries upfront - We ask the Government to make it a legal requirement that all job listings show salary ranges clearly and upfront. We believe this would create a fairer, more transparent job market, better inform candidates and reduce time-wasting when searching for jobs.

Sources state that 35% of UK job listings don’t list salaries, wasting time and widening wage gaps in various fields such as marketing (People Managing People, 2023). Countries such as the U.S. (in states like California) and the EU already require salary ranges in job postings (HR Dive, 2023; Council of the EU, 2023). We believe that a UK law would ensure fairer pay practices, reduce disparities, and help candidates make informed choices, building a more efficient and transparent job market."

I've just found out about this petition six days before it closes which is a shame as I'd have wanged on about it constantly if I'd heard of it sooner! In the UK many job adverts helpfully include the level of the salary, this is usually a range (expressed as £31,645-36,245 sort of thing). This is clear and helpful. Too many jobs still say 'competitive' though which is fairly uninformative. 

I don't believe that any jobseeker is helped by not having the salary information. 

I run a large-ish (4.6k subscribers) mailing list and in ~2018 I decided to stop posting any job advert to the list that didn't have a clear numeric salary. While that means some jobs can't go to the list (it's a shame, and I'm not particularly happy about that) what often happens is that when I email the poster to explain they can go back to their boss / HR people and pass the message on... resulting in a numeric salary added to the email. Hooray. 

Legally require all job listings to show salaries upfront
https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/700482/ 

 

Further reading
1. The Real Reason Job Ads Don't Include A Salary Range (19 March 2017) Forbes, by Liz Ryan.

2. "Theatres please please understand that advertising a job without a salary automatically makes working class artists think they can’t apply. @ace_national please have a word with your NPOs about transparency" (21 May 2018 - tweet is no longer extant so I've not included the reference as it looks like the author has shuttered their account).

3. "There is no good reason to post a job ad without a salary range. There are only bad reasons: 1. To keep current employees from learning they’re underpaid 2. To keep candidates unaware of the budgeted range 3. To use candidates’ salary histories as free market research" (27 July 2019) @humanworkplace (the author of the Forbes piece above).

4. Perspective: The EU Pay Transparency Directive (9 Jan 2025) Deloitte - this doesn't affect the UK

5. Pay transparency in the EU
 - "New rules on pay transparency should help tackle pay discrimination at work and contribute to closing the gender pay gap." - this doesn't affect the UK

 

 

Much missed - Supper Talks at the Chelsea Physic Garden with the Tangerine Dream Café

I often go to public talks, about all sorts of topics. One series that was a regular in my 'season' was the Supper Talks at the Chelsea Physic Garden (CPG), sadly no more. 

Here's a photo of the room the talks took place in upstairs (not my photo so haven't embedded it).

https://x.com/ChelsPhysicGdn/status/738431887576829952/photo/1 and you can find more tweets and images here.

Everything about this was utterly lovely and genteel - you got to hear someone talk about something interesting and eat something delicious. You could choose to have your supper before or after the talk (I always took the earlier sitting so that I could take the Thames Clipper ferry home to Greenwich afterwards; it runs from Cadogan Pier but there aren't many ferries after 9pm). Talk, nice food, ferry - just perfection in my book.

CPG is economic botany / ethnobotany heaven. It is a beautiful and interesting garden with areas for different kinds of plants that are used for different purposes (dyeing, food, medicine, clothing) with lovely little greenhouses and all sorts of interesting features. The shop is also wonderful and I had several happy snacks and suppers in the Tangerine Dream Café.

 

That café has now moved to the Ragged School in Poplar (the Ragged Café is on the 309 bus route, or a short walk from the 339) but the Supper Talks at CPG seem to have stopped. The current café arrangement does run what look to be lovely supper events. Outside tables laden with deliciousness, but it's just eating not learning so I've never felt that tempted. I realised I'd not actually been to the gardens since 2018 (!) so I will have to remedy that soon, I suppose Covid didn't help.

In December 2018 lots of celebrities wrote to (then) Prince Charles asking him to save the Tangerine Dream Café which lost out to Rocket And Radish Ltd, there was a bit of a hoo ha about it and it made the Daily Mail: Stars plea to Charles to fight to save garden cafe under threat of closure.

Annoyingly, for the purposes of this post, I don't have a record of all the talks I attended but have managed to find some info about a few of them.

This page shows the current events at Chelsea Physic Garden.

4 October 2018
Supper talk: 'Captain Bligh & the Breadfruit'
"William Bligh (of ‘Mutiny on the Bounty’ fame) undertook two remarkable Pacific voyages before 1800, transporting Breadfruit from Tahiti to the West Indies. A fascinating evening presented by Pieter Ban der Merwe, outlining the challenges and outcomes of these missions." 

I wasn't able to find the info on the Wayback Machine / Internet Archive but this snippet came via the Cadogan VIP magazine PDF.

They had some breadfruit at this talk and I rather enjoyed it - a bit like a very light pineapple.

4 October 2018 - sampling breadfruit at the Chelsea Physic Garden supper talk on Captain Bligh and the Breadfruit. Both of which I enjoyed.

 

4 October 2018 - possibly a very similar meal to the one below (I can see edamame beans in there) but I didn't make a note of the menu options.

Before I had supper and attended the talk I took a wander round the gift shop.

4 October 2018 - 1 of 3 - the shop at Chelsea Physic Garden

4 October 2018 - 2 of 3 - the shop at Chelsea Physic Garden

4 October 2018 - 3 of 3 - inside the Tangerine Dream Cafe at Chelsea Physic Garden with some lovely bunting

7 December 2017
‘Fashioned from Nature’ with Edwina Ehrman, Curator of Textiles and Fashion at the Victoria & Albert Museum - all about clothing from natural fibres.

From my contemporaneous tweets - 

• "The best bleaching was in Haarlem" Nthlnds - rich folk would send linens there for a spruce up! (also area unpolluted)" 
• "Uncreasable and dye-absorbing linen seems to be the holy grail for textile mfrs. Now hearing about mythic linen-tweed mix" (mythic because original samples hard to get hold of) 
• "Drapers used to *explain* fabrics to their customers, highlighting things to look out for when buying. Harder w synthetics!" 
• "Cotton is v *environmentally* "hygroscopic". 6tn litres used in dying industry. Low-water finishing denim is an improvement" (may be an improvement!) 
• "+, cotton from US, shipped to Colombia for weaving, then to New York for printing. Zipping abt the globe in container ships" 
• "Learning about pineapple fibres which are used in a bonded not woven fabric (I might need to google that)" 
• "Also apparently people in the Balkans have been making alternative leather from mushrooms for *ages*(!)".
  

7 December 2017 - The tables in the garden were covered with the largest wreaths I've ever seen.

13 July 2017
Supper talk: ‘More than cotton: textile secrets of Kew’s Economic Botany Collection’ with Dr Mark Nesbitt, Curator, Economic Botany Collection Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. Below is a photo I took of the supper I had on the night.

13 July 2017 - Goat’s cheese, gruyere and sun-dried tomato tarte (recipe link, Daily Mail link), edamame beans & green & yellow courgettes, plus feta, olive and watermelon, plus orange polenta cake & a glass of white.

4 August 2016
Scented Decadence with Dr. Christina Bradstreet
"Why did the scent of roses encapsulate the spirit of decadence in late nineteenth-century art? This talk explores the use and abuse of perfume and its pleasures and pains in scenes of fragrant intoxication."

You can see all the Chelsea Physic Garden Supper Talks for the 2016 summer and winter season here.

[NEW] She is also presenting "Watts' Choosing: talk and tour with Curator, Dr Christina Bradstreet" at the Watts Gallery (GU3 1DQ) near Guildford on Friday 11 July 2025 from 5.30 to 7pm.

11 Aug 2010
Chelsea Physic Garden talk: 'Hans Sloane, Quinine (Cinchona) & Malaria' by Prof Monique Simmonds. Technically not a 'supper talk' but the restaurant was open and there was a price given for the combined talk and food.

Sloane, Quinine and the Battle Against Malaria
"Chelsea Physic Garden has been growing cinchona (the source of quinine) since Sloane’s time. Professor Monique Simmonds who works at Royal Botanic Gardens Kew, is an expert on ethnobotany and on the plants which have been used to combat this life-threatening disease."

2007 photo of large wooden box labelled Cinchona succirubra at University of Leiden (I was there doing a two-week course in Economic Botany - fab).

Other posts in the Much Missed series

• Somerset House and Film4's Summer Screen series of open air films in the courtyard (9 June 2022)
• The Bankside Frost Fair 2003 - 2008 (24 November 2020)
• Speechification, curated radio documentaries (9 January 2020)
• The National Geographic shop on Regent Street, London (4 January 2020)
• MOMI, London's Museum of the Moving Image (2 January 2014)

 

Tangerine Dream Café - as far as I can tell this began at the Chelsea Physic Garden in 2005 before moving to Brook Green in 2018, then became Café Tangerine at the Institut Francais in 2019 before moving to the Ragged School in Poplar (in 2023..?) and becoming the Ragged Café. 

Here's the Tangerine Dream café recipe for Goat’s cheese, gruyere and sun-dried tomato tarte (all Daily Mail links) also for Crunchy lemon cake  and Fig, thyme, almond and honey tart.

Reach for the Sky Challenge Fund - CAA / DfT funding now open to encourage young people into aviation careers

I have literally (not figuratively) been clicking the first link every day for months as I'm going to apply for this funding. My project, if funded, will be an issue of the CS4FN magazine (plus a new aviation portal on the CS4FN blog about flying and careers) about the computer science and human-computer interaction involved in designing, flying and tracking of aircraft and development of lower carbon options. Very excited, wish me luck!

Here's what I've posted to psci-com, the mailing list for science communicators.

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The Civil Aviation Authority and Department for Transport are keen to encourage young people to find out about careers in aviation so this fund is less about public engagement with the science of flight and more about careers outreach (but the previously funded projects obviously do include plenty of flight-related scicomm!).

Reach For The Sky Challenge Fund
https://stem.caa.co.uk/reach-for-the-sky-challenge-fund/
• open today until 12 September 2025
• Total pot is £750k, likely spread among 10+ projects

They are looking for outstanding outreach projects that can meet the following three objectives:

1. Inspire the next generation of aviation professionals, championing the opportunities available in the sector.  Applicants’ activities should focus on developing interest and engagement with the opportunities available in aviation, showing clear links to career pathways. This might also involve supporting someone in developing skills or gaining experience that could be useful for a career in aviation or aerospace, but should not replace formal education, i.e., delivery of statutory licences or educational qualifications.

2. Reach individuals who would not otherwise be aware of opportunities available within the aviation sector. Applicants should consider how their project might benefit under-represented groups (i.e. women and girls, people from minority ethnic backgrounds, people with disabilities or those from lower socio-economic backgrounds).

3. Have a broad impact by reaching and engaging multiple people. This might be achieved through some form of mass participation event, delivery through an education setting or youth group, or via virtual methods that can reach a mass audience.

Other useful links
Today's press release:

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/750000-to-break-down-barriers-and-get-more-young-people-into-aviation-jobs

Reach for the Sky evaluation (26 September 2024, updated 17 Feb 2025)
Evaluating the success of the Reach for the Sky Challenge Fund and its ability to get young people into aviation careers.

Last year's press release (they upped the pot with additional funding, to £810k, and funded 16 projects (actually 18 if you click on the 'successful applicants button on the first page linked).

PDF listing the 2024 successful applicants with a summary of their projects.

The CAA's (quite fun, cute cartoons page on Careers in Aviation and Aerospace which includes everything (engineering, programming, logistics, ground crew, pilots and cabin crew).

Generation Aviation Group (Gov.UK)
"Generation Aviation is a multistream programme that helps build an aviation workforce fit for the future by raising the profile of aviation careers, removing barriers to access and attracting diverse and talented people to tackle new technologies, decarbonisation and other emerging trends."

Flight tracking pages
FlightRadar24 | ADS-B Exchange | Flight Aware (enter an airport name to see what's coming and going)

How is it even possible that I've never knowingly heard of the Association for the Understanding of Artificial Intelligence until today?!

How??

I work* in computer science-related science communication and actively go looking for interesting things to share with people, including lots about artificial intelligence. Absolutely gobsmacked to learn, while reading this in Sian Meades-Williams' freelance writing jobs newsletter, that there's a whole charity related to AI scicomm and I didn't know about it.

"The Association for the Understanding of Artificial Intelligence - a charity that bridges the gap between public interest and robotics research - needs a part-time assistant editor."
(10hr/wk, £30.3-36.0k pro rata, clos 11 July 2025)

Amazing!

Anyway they have two websites: https://aihub.org/ and https://robohub.org/

I've shared the job advert with psci-com and pecs Jiscmail mailing lists (for science communication in general and science communication in computer science respectively) and the Association of British Science Writers list. I'll also add it to the TechDevJobs site as it's a computing-adjacent role and I collect those.

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*I work (at QMUL's Computer Science department, EECS^) at the intersection of computer science and 'scicomm' (science communication) & public engagement. Effectively I'm an embedded science writer (editor, proofreader, admin, events wrangler) on CS4FN (the Computer Science For Fun magazine and blog) which is an outreach project for schools from our department. I often write about artificial intelligence, or highlight events and interesting things to do with it - for schools, teachers, general public, colleagues.

^EECS = the School of Electronic Engineering and Computer Science

Atoma Union C.I.C. / Atoma C.I.C. and Youthworksunion C.I.C. - fundraising at stations in London and possibly elsewhere

I've been making notes about the various Community Interest Companies (CICs) which are involved in selling magazines or otherwise fundraising outside various stations in London and elsewhere. I've been approached by people from these companies as I pass through Farringdon and have been surprised by the volume of "chuggers" operating there (I counted 11 on one visit). 

These are not charities (so not strictly 'chuggers', a pejorative portmanteau of charity and mugger) but several members of the staff are quite persistent in getting your attention, telling you that you've dropped something (even if only your smile), or complimenting you. Many people find this sort of fundraising makes them uncomfortable. 

This post is about Atoma Union C.I.C. / Atoma C.I.C. and Youthworksunion C.I.C.

Also in this series are posts that are written to try and help me get a sense of the various different organisations under similarly-named umbrellas.

• Inside Success (4 companies)
  
• We R Blighty (2 companies)
• Atoma / Youth Works Union (3 companies) - this post
  

What are the organisations?
1. Atoma C.I.C. (12773310) - incorporated on 28 July 2020 for the purposes of "46180 - Agents specialised in the sale of other particular products". The accounts are delayed (were due on 30 April 2024) though the company is still listed as active. Run by Omokehinde Oreoluwa Aladenola and Ayoola David Osaruwvense Obisesan.

It looks like moves were made to have the company struck off voluntarily in 2024 but there was a court-ordered restoration on 3 February 2025 (PDF).

2. Youth Atoma Enterprise Ltd. (15045868) - this is a private limited company, not a CIC. It was incorporated on 2nd August 2023 for the purposes of "87900 - Other residential care activities not elsewhere classified" and "88910 - Child day-care activities" so may be quite unrelated to the companies above. Its accounts are delayed (due on 2 May 2025) and it's run by Omokehinde Aladenola (Ayoola David Osaruwvense Obisesan resigned in 2024). Formerly named Youth Atoma Enterprice Ltd.

3. Atoma Union C.I.C. (15686104) - incorporated on 27 April 2024 for "47990 - Other retail sale not in stores, stalls or markets", accounts not due until January 2026, run by Omokehinde Aladenola.

4. Youthworksunion C.I.C. (15790735) - incorporated on 20 June 2024 for the purposes of "47990 - Other retail sale not in stores, stalls or markets", run by Kenny Aladen.

Companies 2 and 3 both operate from a CV2 company address post code (#1 from DA8) and there are quite a few other companies operating from that address including #4, run by someone else with a slightly different surname. 

The website for Atoma Union says that "We are currently undergoing a name change from Atoma Union to Youth Works Union. This is to clear any misunderstanding if you see a representative of ours using a different logo . We are just currently in a transition period.". 

Alamy has a photograph purporting to be someone from Youth Works Union selling Uplifterz magazines (I'm not sure how the two companies are related), also Alamy has mis-labelled them as a charity.

Appointments records
Because each company has its own correspondence address (this is completely normal) it means that the records of the officers can too so there are multiple appointments records for Mr Aladenola.  

Omokehinde Aladenola aka Omokehinde Oreoluwa Aladenola has three appointment records: this record lists two appointments including Atoma Union C.I.C., this record lists one appointment for Youth Atoma Enterprise Ltd and this one (which includes his middle name) lists one appointment, for Atoma C.I.C. 

Misc
There is also a seemingly unrelated company (dissolved) called Union Atoma Ltd (14405810), included for name-search completeness.

We R Blighty C.I.C. now has its own subreddit

Edit: 26 June 2025 - Veterans fundraising firm We R Blighty guilty of unlawful cash collections (26 June 2025) The iPaper, following a 'hearing at City of London Magistrates’ Court earlier this month.'

I've not actually encountered We R Blighty C.I.C. (14349080), a Community Interest Company (CIC), which is unusual as they seem to be everywhere in London and in other cities raising funds to support homeless veterans. Their record on Companies House says that their next accounts are due on 30 June 2025.

They came to my attention solely because of news articles, and later information on Reddit, expressing concerns about the organisation. Having never met them I've no particular beef with them but am currently making a note of the various CICs that operate at London's stations.

There has been a bit of a proliferation of these CICs and I've encountered Uplifterz, Atoma Union / Youtth Works Union and Safehaven Initiative (new kid on the block, one of the two Savehaven CICs having been incorporated only on 2 June 2025). I've also encountered Inside Success at Stratford and Mile End.

We R Blighty personnel

• Benjamin William Mills - active (2 appointments, We R Blighty C.I.C. and Veterans in Need Ltd, 14955871)
• Danielle Jane Vidler - active (3 appointments)
• Benjamin Mills - resigned (1 appointment) and 
• Sally Ann Mills - resigned (1 appointment).

 

Further reading

We R Blighty subreddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/werblighty/

Do those ‘We R Blighty’ fundraisers outside stations really deserve your cash? (22 May 2025) The Londoner

Revealed: Armed forces fundraiser We R Blighty that collects thousands to 'get veterans off the street' is subject of TWO investigations by police and watchdog over its conduct (9 November 2024) Daily Mail 

Cash collections for homeless veterans probed by police (8 November 2024) The iPaper

We R Blighty - Forces Charity Scam (27 May 2023) Walter Mitty Hunters' Club HQ

Trying to get my head around "Inside Success" (station magazine sellers) and their various companies

Inside Success is a Community Interest Company (CIC) which has attracted a lot of attention for both the way some staff have behaved towards the public and the way in which staff have been treated by the company. They have been investigated twice by the Fundraising Regulator in March 2023 (1) and January 2024 (2) for pressurised fundraising and for not having the relevant licence to accept donations. ITV did a piece on them (3) which indicated that some of their staff had not been paid. Barking Council (2019) and Manchester City Council (2023) fined them for collecting money without a permit (4) and the Daily Mail drew attention to the large sums of money being collected (5).

As far as I'm aware CICs can ask for donations publicly if they have been given a permit to do so by Metropolitan Police (in London) or the local council. That doesn't appear to be the case here. (Companies don't actually have to be registered with the Fundraising Regulator to fundraise however; registration is voluntary).

I think that without such collecting permits in place they are only allowed to sell magazines.  

There are a lot of different companies operating in a similar way in London and elsewhere and I've itemised the ones I know about here (6).

How many Inside Success companies are there?
I think it's four; two active, two dissolved.

Active
Inside Success Union C.I.C. (10174759) is the one investigated by the Fundraising Regulator. It was incorporated on 11 May 2016 (previously known as Inside Success Union Ltd) and its accounts are currently delayed (should have been published in February 2025). The company is run by Darren Olawale and David Sonowo. 

There's also Inside Success Ltd (15932606) which is not a CIC but a private limited company. It was incorporated on 3 September 2024, its accounts aren't due until next year and it's run by Darren Olawale.

Dissolved
Inside Success LLP (OC357911), a limited liability partnership, was incorporated on 15 September 2010 and dissolved on 26 February 2013. It was also run by Darren Olawale and David Sonowo.

Inside Success UK CIC (08237681) was incorporated on 2 October 2012, dissolved on 20 December 2016 - five months after it was supposed to have submitted its accounts. It was run by Darren Olawale, David Sonowo and Cecil Hugh Quartey.

David Sonowo also had three other companies, with 'U Got Jokes' in the name (all dissolved), two of which he shared with Darren Olawale. Mr Sonowo spoke, on 29 July 2020, on Day Two of the BBC's CDX [Creative Diversity] festival, in the 'U Got Jokes' session with a few others.

How many correspondence addresses?
All of these companies have different company addresses (perfectly reasonable!) which also means that the officers and directors etc also have different addresses and consequently different appointments records. This does make it a bit harder to keep track of things and as far as I can tell there are four records for Darren and three for David (there may be others).

Darren Olawale has one appointment here (for the dissolved Inside Success UK CIC [08237681]), seven appointments here (for Inside Success Ltd (15932606) active, Inside Success Union C.I.C. (10174759) active and, Inside Success LLP (OC357911) dissolved), and several unrelated companies - see more in reference (7). 

There's also a Darren Ola who has one appointment for an unrelated company. I think it's the same person because the other officers for the company are David Sonowo (and Anthony Sinclair Greenidge). I also found a record for a Darren Olawalw (typo) with one appointment for another unrelated company. The company's correspondence address was changed from an WC2H address to an SW8 one in 2021; both of those addresses are used by other companies Mr Olawale runs too.

David Sonowo has three appointments here (for the two dissolved Inside Success companies and an unrelated company), five appointments listed here (for Inside Success Union C.I.C. and four unrelated companies) and one appointment here (unrelated to Inside Success companies). There's reference here to another U Got Jokes company starting in 2005 but I cant find it on Companies House.

When did Inside Success begin?
The first Inside Success company (Inside Success LLP) was incorporated on 15 September 2010 but this tweet from November 2009 made me wonder if there might have been an earlier company (if so I can't find it on Companies House).

http://pic.gd/20adf9 Delighted to meet Darren Olawale & David of Inside Success (http://bit.ly/11LfMw) for interview, out January 2010

— King of Shaves (@KingofShaves) November 17, 2009

The links don't work now but point to an earlier version of the Inside Success website which exists on the Wayback Machine - the pic•gd link goes nowhere but the bitly one points to (dead) https://ww1.insidesuccess.co.uk/lander whereas their current website has the insidesuccessuk format.

References

(1) Investigation summary: Inside Success Union CIC (March 2023) Fundraising Regulator
Registered company no. 10174759.

Code themes examined: Pressurised fundraising, dealing with vulnerable donors, fundraising licenses, causing an obstruction.
Code breach? Yes

(2) Investigation summary: Inside Success Union CIC (January 2024) Fundraising Regulator
Registered company no. 10174759.

Code themes examined: Pressurised fundraising, misleading fundraising, fundraising licenses, causing an obstruction, wearing appropriate identification when engaged in street fundraising, complaint handling and learning from complaints.
Code breach? Yes

(3) Anti-knife crime group Inside Success Union accused of harassing public to raise cash (1 August 2023) ITV

(4a) Bosses of magazine Inside Success Union are fined for selling in Barking without a licence (4 February 2019) Barking and Dagenham Post

(4b) Company who illegally 'pressured people into donating' to them on streets of Manchester fined (3 November 2023) Manchester Evening News 

(5) Exposed: Where the £3million we hand over to anti-knife 'charities'' pushy High Street collectors REALLY ends up (25 May 2024) Daily Mail

I hope the writer of this Reddit post, about the company fundraising in Bristol, won't mind me excerpting a bit of their comment as I think it's important - "It's worth noting that a section of the racist arsehole press in the UK (the Daily Mail and GB News) is down on this organisation because it is predominantly run by people of colour. Racists and racism can of course fuck off, this is Bristol after all, but ... I'd encourage everyone to respectfully engage with each of them [IS staff collecting at stations] and encourage them to do something better with their lives..."

(6) Community Interest Companies (CICs) selling magazines, collecting donations ('chugging') at many of London's stations (9 June 2025) Brodiesnotes: Stuff that occurs to me (this blog)

(7) Companies listed are: Inside Success Ltd (15932606) active, My Sounds Global Ltd (15096639) active, U Got Jokes Comedy Ltd (14290194) dissolved, Inside Success Union C.I.C. (10174759) active, Inside Success LLP (OC357911) dissolved, U Got Jokes Limited (07163628) dissolved, Kick Up Academy Limited (10052282) dissolved.

Edit 17 July 2025: Why can't anyone stop the fundraisers outside London stations? from LondonCentric https://www.londoncentric.media/p/inside-success-fundraisers-chuggers-london-railway-stations

Community Interest Companies (CICs) selling magazines, collecting donations ('chugging') at many of London's stations

The term 'chugger' means 'charity mugger' and refers to people who are either paid by a charity directly to do face to face fundraising or, more commonly, are paid by a third company to which this has been outsourced. There are plenty of complaints to be had about the methods used by chuggers, some of whom even call at people's homes, but they are at least fundraising for a genuine purpose even if they annoy lots of people while doing so.

Community Interest Companies (CICs) are different but have followed a similar pattern. They are not regulated by the Charity Commission and have much less oversight on them. Consequently there are one or two that are or have been under investigation for raising money without a permit or for harrassing members of the public to give them money. They also fall between several regulatory gaps which makes it harder for authorities to do much about them.

Here are some of the CICs I've encountered or heard about.

• Inside Success Ltd Private limited Company 15932606

• Inside Success Union C.I.C. Community Interest Company 10174759 Accounts and Confirmation statement overdue - the Fundraising Regulator investigated people working for this one (in January 2024, and March 2023, they've also featured on ITV news and in the Daily Mail about how they spend their 3 million turnover; Manchester fined them for fundraising without a licence)

• Uplifterz CIC Community Interest Company 15835071- there's also Uplifters Agency Ltd (16102520) run by the same person.
  

• Uplifterz Union C.I.C. Community Interest Company 15944885 (this is run by a different person from Uplifterz C.I.C., but from the same business address or virtual office)
  

• Atoma Union C.I.C. Community Interest Company 15686104
  Atoma Union's website says "We are currently undergoing a name change from Atoma Union to Youth Works Union. This is to clear any misunderstanding if you see a representative of ours using a different logo . We are just currently in a transition period." though if it's the same Atoma Union as the one above they have different officers (but who share the same correspondence address).

• Atoma C.I.C. Community Interest Company 12773310 Accounts and Confirmation statement overdue

• Empoweryou Enterprise CIC Community Interest Company 15336620 Confirmation statement overdue
  

• Mentor Point Youth CIC Community Interest Company 14795768
  

• Youthworksunion C.I.C. Community Interest Company 15790735
  

• We R Blighty C.I.C. Community Interest Company 14349080 (Kent Police were looking into them for financial irregularities). One of the directors of this also runs Veterans in Need Ltd. Blighty's company records due on 30 June 2025. Edit: 16 July 2025: On 26 June this news story was published Veterans fundraising firm We R Blighty guilty of unlawful cash collections iNews.
  

• Safehaven Initiative CIC (16061849) / Safehaven Initiative Union CIC (16490068) I met these today at Farringdon station. I had a pleasant chat with the guy who was not trying to sell me a magazine (only wanted donations) but there was was no pressure. SI CIC was founded in Nov 2024 and SIU CIC onl last week, on 2nd June (!) so I'm not sure yet if this is a new thing that's genuine or just more of the same.

• Attentive Management Ltd (14610982) - 1 negative and 2 glowing reviews on Indeed. Overheard one at Woolwich using the phrase 'for my confidence' in his opening gambit which is something I've heard the people at Farringdon say, as in 'can I ask you something for my confidence?', practising public speaking or something like that. [Edit: added on 16 July 2025]
  

Plus at least one which has been dissolved.

• Inside Success UK CIC Community Interest Company 08237681

Edit 17 July 2025: Why can't anyone stop the fundraisers outside London stations? from LondonCentric https://www.londoncentric.media/p/inside-success-fundraisers-chuggers-london-railway-stations

How about an 'easy mode' for people too skittish to enjoy horror films. Peril warnings given in advance, that sort of thing.

Because I would genuinely like this to be a 'thing' this post is Creative Commons and you can repost it with me as author (feel free to edit it but please don't change my meaning). See at the end on how to credit me.

Image credit: Image by KTkato from Pixabay, with added text. (Note that the image is separate from the Creative Commons licence below).

 
The main problem I have with horror films is gore and unexpected jump scares. The jump scares are worse and so I rarely choose to watch horror as I don't enjoy being startled, then shown something unpleasant. 

Sometimes films use music, pacing, cinematography, tropes etc to warn the audience that something unpleasant is imminent and I tend to close my eyes at that point. This has got me through Silence of the Lambs and Pitch Black, both of which I actually enjoyed. Now that I know where the 'eek' bits are in both films I can watch them 'safely'. 

Sometimes films don't use music etc to warn and I do not like that one bit.

For me the ideal would be that thing they use in old silent films where an intertitle card warns "Peril ahead..." or "Watch out for that thing there." 

Accessibility means that it's now possible to watch almost any film with subtitles and increasingly more of them now have audio descriptions to describe to visually impaired people what's happening on-screen. I'd quite like a Timid Setting version of scary films with variable options. E.g. you could have the screen blur when something horrific happens, or an audio or text indicator warns you to shut your eyes.... right about... now. 

Creative Commons Licence

How about an 'easy mode' for people too skittish to enjoy horror films. Peril warnings given in advance, that sort of thing. by Jo Brodie is licensed under CC BY 4.0

Post inspired by my niece who was a professional scarer at a Hallowe'en event.

The bit below isn't part of the CC BY 4.0 licence as I don't own the rights to others' posts so can't grant permission to use.

Examples from other domains

Haunted houses

I remember reading a few years ago a post somewhere (can't remember details sadly) where someone said that they were too feeble to enjoy haunted houses and would like there to be a preview event before it opened properly where you could visit and learn about the story world without any of the actual scaring. The actors could talk about their roles, you could enjoy exploring the experience and no-one would jump out at you. Wish I'd kept hold of that. I found some that are conceptually similar, below.

Wholesome haunted house shenanigans - this Reddit post gives a couple of examples of fairly mundane things where people dropped their spectacles and a scarily dressed zombie helped them then went back to growling at people. Commenters add their stories too.

"I like haunted houses in theory BUT I have no idea how to react when the actors speak to you. They ask me a question and I just… answer it… The scariest part of a haunted house is the unscripted social interaction." - this Tumbler post considers the awkwardness inherent in haunted house events.

Related: Autism Dad Creates Sensory-Friendly Haunted House - inspired by his autistic son a man in Ohio created a quiet, no flashing lights haunted house experience where the actors were friendly not scary.

Gaming

I like this thread from Moose Allain where he mentions that he'd enjoy playing a version of a game where you just get to explore the landscape without any of the jeopardy of meeting with someone or something that might want to harm you.