To think this was a bit mean...

[Anon1993]

A local charity has recently been awarded several thousand pounds of funding. They are using that funding to pay for various clubs and events in our local area; which is incredibly deprived.

Now I’ll declare my bias first; I have a quiet personal issue with the chair of this charity; which may be colouring my thinking. So here’s the aibu:

As part of this funding her charity (and everyone round here does think of her when they think of the charity), are paying the expenses for me to put on a community event next saturday.

Basically, I’ve organised and paid for everything needed for the event; and then I’ve put my receipts in to claim the money back. One of them got turned down - £15ish on refreshments to feed the volunteers at the event.

Due to the nature of the event, most of the volunteers are children; many of whom due to the demographics of the area are free-school meals; and who will be at venue from 11am to 10pm. When I asks why this money had been denied; she told me they could just bring a pack-up. I reminded her that many of these kids are fsm; so wouldn’t be expected to bring pack up to school trips or similar; and in this case we’re giving up their whole Saturday near enough for the benefit of the commmunity.The answer was still no.

Okay then - I’ll pay for it.

The thing that annoys me is she has approved money for refreshments to sell; with the money going to her charity, she has approved marketing with her name all over it (Yes, her name not her charities name), but she will not approve £1.50 per child so a group of disadvantaged, likely fsm, kids, who are volunteering for their community, don’t have to worry about lunch.

The way it works as I understand it, and I may be wrong as I have only done this once, is that for small refunds; the woman pays out of her own purse and then bank transfers the cash from the charity account to hers.

So she is the petty cash then. Literally. I'm the treasurer for our very small (under £5k) community group and I do all reimbursements because I like to see the receipts and keep a log. Same for when I volunteered for a branch of a very well known national charity. Volunteers could have expenses reimbursed but receipts were needed for VAT purposes.

In any case this seems an odd way of doing things from a segregation of duties angle . Although perhaps this is just me being used to having to do things a certain way.

When my mother was doing a foster carers course with Barnado's, she used to talk about the huge amounts of catered food that would be at every session. For the potential foster carers and for the people that ran the course. Even if it was two hours they would be having sandwiches, scones, cakes etc.

I am shocked and disgusted by tgat so called 'charity', op, so they can provide refreshments for meetings, but do not give £15 to help feed their vulnerable child volunteers. It is not a charity I would like to work for. I would tell them that you will be providing refreshments for them out of your pocket and why! An utter disgrace!

If you can spare a bit more, op, I would!

As the volunteers are all children, and deprived children at that, then refreshments at at an event aimed at deprived children could be worked into a budget.

It sounds like the chair has forgotten the volunteers are among their target area.

I think the treasurer has forgotten that they are a charity, and the principles of helping the target group, it is a disgrace.