From one extreme to another – the diversity among mySociety’s volunteers is most fascinating. You may, or may not, have read one of my previous blog posts on Tim Morley, a volunteer responsible for the day to day running of pledgebank.com. If you have, you will know that he is a primary school language teacher who is making a massive contribution towards keeping that site going.
It may be difficult to believe, and mySociety is ever so grateful for it, but there are actually other volunteers out there who are just as dedicated. One of them are Amandeep Rehlon – Treasurer as well as Trustee of UKCOD and Director of mySociety.
Having a background in accounting and finance Amandeep is responsible for, among other things, VAT returns, annual accounts and paying staff. We all know that money makes the world go around, so quite a lot of responsibility there.
As dealing with finances at mySociety is not enough, he also does it in his “real” job working for the Bank of England. As he puts it himself, being based in the Financial Stability area he has been ‘ahem, rather busy in the last year or so’. Yeah, I can imagine!
Amandeep originally got involved with mySociety in late 2005 as he was seen as a suitable replacement for Tom Loosemore, the previous Treasurer who left to due to family commitments. Three years or so later, he’s still around because he thinks ‘mySociety’s sites make the world a better place’ and (as with Tim Morley) he likes the people that he works with. Very encouraging to read that he also knows a lot of people who are using mySociety’s services in their day jobs – we would like to hear more of that!
When he has some spare time (not sure when that would be but there you go) he plays hockey, read, listen to music (including lots of gigs) and eat too much chocolate – ‘especially from James’s chocolate shop’. Sounds like a full on life, but fortunately with a bit of fun in between.
Following on from the campaign for disclosure of MPs expenses – is there any chance that UKCOD charity will ever get around to filing its own accounts? They are nearly a year overdue!
Should we be really concerned that the person responsible for the annual accounts is also engaged in Financial Stability for the Bank of England? OK that was intended as a joke rather than a slur but come on; how can you get so excited that MPs don’t want to publish details of their expenses when this charity has not published its own accounts?
Or perhaps the fact that I work in FS explains why I might have been “otherwise pre-occupied” over the last year or so? But seriously, I thought we had submitted our returns to the Charities Commission, and definitely have submitted to Companies House. I agree that it’s not ideal and will chase up.