Quick question about charity bank accounts/signatures

[icebearforpresident]

I received an expenses cheque for some supplies I bought for the Girlguiding unit I help run, over £100. I paid it into my bank nearly 2 weeks ago via an envelope at a post office counter but never received the funds. Yesterday I received the cheque back through the post as a change to the pay in amount hadn’t been initialled (the amount hadn’t been changed but a 3 had been written over again as it wasn’t very clear). The amount in numbers clearly matches the amount in writing.

I am a signatory on the bank account and one of the 2 required signatures on the cheque in question. Can I initial it myself of initials required to ‘approve’ the change or will I also need the other signatory to initial is as well? Other signatory is on holiday now so I won’t see her until next week, in the meantime I have over £100 expenses to claim and less than that amount left in my bank account
so I could do with the funds asap.

I am also a GirlGuiding leader. I'm afraid I think you need both sets of initials. I'm quite impressed the bank actually checked as we've had cheques with the wrong signatures go through before. When I say wrong, the amount and cash transfer were correct but we had someone sign who we thought could sign but wasn't actually a signatory.
This is bank thing rather than a GirlGuiding thing as GirlGuiding only requires double approval rather than double signatures, although we stick with two signatures as it covers our backs.
Not much help now but could you get a third signature for the future? Maybe a DC?
If you are short of funds could your DC release a district cheque and the unit pay them back? Or do you have petty cash that you could at least pay part to yourself in? You could show on the accounts as a joint cash and cheque payment?
We've been on cheques for a while but we're about to switch to internet banking with double authentication which should make things quicker.

Thanks for the reply, you’re only confirming what I thought myself to be fair. If it hadn’t taken so long for the cheque to come back to me in the first place I would just initial it myself and try my luck but I think I’ll need to wait for the other signatory to come back, while I could undoubtedly do with the money I get paid next Monday and am fortunate that wont struggle too much until then (and getting a cheque from the DC wouldn’t be any quicker!)

We actually already have a third signatory for the account (we might even have a forth as well!) but neither of them live locally. I could drop into the unit which one of them leads at their meeting this week but as they aren’t the other signature on the cheque I’m not sure if that will also make it get sent back to me.

A side point; it’s not great governance to sign cheques to yourself - I get two of the other signatories to sign when I’m the beneficiary- can you get the other two to do a new cheque.