Fix mangled chars in MySQL DB. Original info here http://jonisalonen.com/2010/mysql-character-encoding/

fix_mangled_mysql

//general case is:

update table set column = convert(binary column using utf8);

// if we've just moved a cmsms db then this is a good start
// but you'll have to do any module specific bits.

update cms_content_props set content = convert(binary content using utf8);
update cms_htmlblobs set html = convert(binary html using utf8);
update cms_module_news set news_data = convert(binary news_data using utf8);
update cms_module_news set summary = convert(binary summary using utf8);

This also seems to work well:

update cms_module_QuakersInTheWorld set qContent = convert(cast(convert(qContent using latin1) as binary) using utf8)

one of these days I should investigate what it's doing.

And this seems to work best of all so far:
Convert to BLOB first and then back to text (or whatever) in UTF8

ALTER TABLE cms_module_QuakersInTheWorld CHANGE qSummary qSummary BLOB;
ALTER TABLE cms_module_QuakersInTheWorld CONVERT TO CHARACTER SET utf8, CHANGE qSummary qSummary TEXT;