They did incredibly well! raised over £30m for disadvantaged people in the UK and across the world - an astonishing 50% increase on last year's total of £20m. Audience numbers were up too, from 8 million to 9.4 million.

Comic Relief's campaign grew out of a desire to harness the talents of entertainers, especially comics, to make a positive change to the lives of disadvantaged people. Many comics have a strong sense of justice: this motivates many who take part in charity fundraising.

For Sport Relief, the association with sport means the potential for teamwork, challenge, international community, a sense of pushing yourself to the limit, which inspires people to step out of their comfort zone in aid of charity.

, an actor and comedian with no special athletic ability, ran a lonely, painful, awe-inspiring 43 marathons in 51 days. He raised over a million pounds for Sport Relief. took a considerable risk by performing an epic solo comedy sketch before thousands of sportsmen and women at the Sheffield Arena - a one take wonder with only a minute of recording time to spare. and presenter for Sport Relief, breaking two world records in the process.

I was one of many people massively moved by ' film from a malaria clinic in Uganda where tiny babies were being given emergency treatment. Chris allowed the audience to share his feelings in the bleakest of circumstances. This was very different from Chris' usual style on Radio 1's breakfast show. BT handled 386,978 calls to the donation line during the live TV show, peaking at 210 calls per second.

But apart from the celebrities, there were the less famous contributors, who raised money or donated. There were runners in South Africa, in Manchester's Coronation Street set, around Television Centre and in local parks. There were films about inspirational local leaders in Africa and across the UK, and doctors and nurses working in daunting and difficult circumstances, all carrying out the work funded by Comic Relief.

In a less spectacular way, the Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ's other appeals continue throughout the year. Radio Merseyside has just launched an appeal for mobile clinics for the Clatterbridge Cancer Centre. Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ One's is currently filming with and a charity called , showing how it supports microfinance in Tanzania. You'll be able to see the programme on 23 May.

[This is my last blog as Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ Charity Appeals Adviser, as I'm moving on to work as Chief Adviser for Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ North.]

When I lace up my running shoes on Friday for I'll be mulling on how far we've come since we set up the charity ten years and £75 million ago.

is reputedly the biggest mass participation event in the world, and this weekend's television is one of the biggest of the year, with a galaxy of stars from to , to .

Celebrities have really risen to the challenge this year and the feats have been both serious and magnificent - from battling water-skiing the Channel, to and who could forget super-girl alone.

Back in 2000 I had just taken up the reins of Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ Sport and together with CEO Kevin Cahill, we hatched a plot to use the inspirational power of sport for good - to change people's lives and also to help Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ Sport get closer to their phenomenal audiences.

The rest is fund-raising history.

Since then I've been lucky enough to see the results throughout the UK as well as far and wide, on visits to hospitals and schools, orphanages and smallholdings in Ethiopia and Zambia, with and Something for the Weekend's among others.

Now I can't wait for the shows and I'm anxious about living up to the steep targets we have set ourselves to raise money in the teeth of a terrible recession - just when vulnerable people need help most.

This weekend there is , 'Smithy' of fame coaching the cream of British sport - have a sneak peak at him putting and friends through their paces above - Dragon Den stars battling it out on Strictly Come Dancing, hosting a Question of Sport Relief, and the team putting their reputations on the line as they swap football shirts for aprons as they try there hand at Masterchef.

There are specials of , and , as well as 's Gareth Malone trying his best to train Olympic and Paralympic heroes to perform a song on the night.

On Sunday at 16.05 on Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ1 look out for the and and launching the first ever international Sport Relief Mile in South Africa. Phew.

What still astonishes me is the capacity of UK audiences, communities, schools and celebrities to keep on giving, supporting and caring. And the magic and alchemy of translating wonderful Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ entertainment and documentary into money and help.

All we need to figure out is what to do next - 2012, our most important year of sport yet is looming.

Bring on !

On January 15th the Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ broadcast over 70 appeals for Haiti on behalf of the . Since then, hundreds of thousands of people across the world have raised money, and across the UK Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ staff are no exception, raising money through collections, cake sales and local events.

The total raised by the DEC now stands at over £70m. This is far more than most emergency appeals. Typically, an emergency appeal will raise £10-20m; the most recent exception being the 2005 East Asia Earthquake Appeal, which received around £60m in donations. And, of course, the 2005 Tsunami Appeal raised an extraordinary £300m. Lessons learnt from post-Tsunami disaster relief are being applied to the way agencies are now working in Haiti. Their priorities are moving from immediate aid to reconstruction and recovery: money donated to the will be spent over three years, a longer period than usual.

But it's not just the DEC appeal which is current. is in the run-up to an appeal on 19th March. And Blue Peter is looking for a charity partner for its .

The Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ's newest appeal, the , is facing some interesting challenges. The programme supporting the appeal will go out on Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ Two on Sunday June 20th. This is a very different slot from and - typically a Friday night on Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ One, and a great deal of work is going into how to make the programme 'appeal' to a Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ Two audience. There's also the small matter of a match between Brazil and Ivory Coast which takes place at the same time, potentially splitting a family audience.

With four months to go, the production team is starting to shoot the films which will tell audiences how the £1.8m raised from the 2006 Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ Wildlife Fund Appeal was spent. Charity staff are putting together off-air events and promotions. The Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ's interactive technical team (ITACU) is looking at how the telephony and donation systems will work. There's new branding; fundraising packs are being assembled. The will benefit from the experience of the more established appeals, but crucially, in the run up to the appeal, it will need to find its own distinctive ways to move and involve the audience.

are a stark reminder of just how quickly tragedy can strike, and in equal measure how compassionate we can be as a nation in response to it.

Today sees the official launch of , the fund raising collaboration between the Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ and . On the weekend of the 19 - 21 March, , , Strictly on Tour, 's stars and hundreds of thousands of members of the public will 'rise to the challenge' for a weekend of fund-raising to help some of the neediest people, many of them in the UK and some, like those in Haiti, on the other side of the world.

Recently I was lucky enough to join colleagues from both the Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ and Comic relief, as well as Strictly and former England rugby star and Something for The Weekend presenter on a visit to one of these places: Zambia.

Although the name conjures up images of the epic Victoria Falls, romantic steam engines traversing the Benguela Railway and colourful postage stamps, since gaining independence in 1964, Zambia has witnessed the inevitable boom and bust of tying your prospects to just one crop - copper - and it is now struggling to feed its people.

Zambia is one of more than 40 African countries where Comic Relief cash is at work and making some progress battling the worst of the continent's problems - shortage of food and water, poor infrastructure, corruption and chronic health issues including the devastation of HIV/ Aids.

The huge challenge it faces is reflected in some devastating statistics - 15 percent of the population is suffering from Aids/ HIV, 64 percent of people live on less than one dollar a day and life-expectancy has fallen to just 42 years.

But in a land where you could excuse people for feeling downtrodden the support from Comic Relief is bolstering the spirit and energy of small neighbourhood, self-help schemes that use local expertise to provide management, support and training to help young and old get on their feet and through the day.

Two of these schemes - the Bwaafana Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ Based care organisation which received nearly £300,000 from Comic Relief and the Lusaka-based , with a grant of £637,000 - epitomise this resilience. Inspirational leaders Harriet and Bridget manage teams which make a difference on a daily basis by building networks of helpers, nurses, teachers and farmers that tackle the challenges head on where people live - and die.

Even our short time in Zambia made us appreciate how tough these projects have to work to stay afloat amid the challenges and prejudice of what one local school headmaster told us was the traditional mantra of "Educate The Boy and Marry The Girl".

So many of the major inequalities in Zambia stem from a lack of knowledge about health, gender and education, so it was wonderful to visit Mabele School and see boys and girls in class together, getting a basic education in their tiny, hot classrooms. Although a beneficiary of Comic Relief funding, the headmaster has 250 children in six classes, all orphans, and is the sole teacher. Some children walk two hours each way to school without any breakfast in their stomachs - so you understand the scale of the problems he still faces.

But the joy when Tim and Austin handed over a proper football for them to play with on the school's sandy and bumpy pitch showed the huge difference small gestures can make. The kids had real dreams and ambitions - to be teachers, a doctor, a pilot and a lawyer and it filled you with hope that these self-help projects will catch on and take off - an epidemic of goodness in a land where other epidemics have brought only misery and a rising death toll.

We can do so much to help combat such misery and suffering at home and abroad. Since Comic Relief began in 1988 it has raised more than £500m through its Red Nose campaigning on Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ Television. And now Sport Relief, a relative newcomer only born in 2002, is building yet more momentum, fusing the power of entertainment, sport and personal challenge to make a difference too.

My abiding memory of that trip is of an abjectly poor family farm where a mother of seven with her goats and gaggle of hungry children lived, emaciated and exhausted. I remember how her scrawny baby boy reached into her blouse and pulled out a tiny empty breast. Nothing to eat, no meal in sight, not even there. We gave them bananas and the few bottles of water we had with us and as we left the baby boy was sucking hard on some fruit: perhaps enough goodness and nourishment to get through another week. For this family as well as for those in Haiti and across the globe, Sport Relief 2010 just can't come soon enough...

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