HI Bill, to answer your actual question....
From my perspective it's definitely been more low key this year, which I know is a relief to one or two members here. The last two years were pretty full on, but IMHO very enjoyable because of it. In my experience charity collection has to be somewhat in your face in order for it to raise big bucks. If you put a sign up saying "please give to charity X by calling this number" you will get far less donations than if you had people walking up to you and explaining why the charity needs the money with a big bucket in their hands. Live Aid was a great example of this, the hunger aid charities had existed for years, but Live Aid put it right up in our face and people like Geldof passionately imploring people for money raised millions overnight. It's too easy to ignore needing charities, sometimes you need to be made to feel uncomfortable about your own personal wealth.
That having been said, this is an SK collector site and it is clear that the big ticket items that both RF and you make happen through huge amounts of work 'in the quiet months' are the ones that make the big $$$, how much longer that can be sustained I don't know.
just my 2c