CFG’s annual dinner provides the ingredients for Ian Allsop’s blog, but he doesn’t like to mention it.

It’s that time of the year again. No, not that one. The other one. The one where I don’t write about a certain annual dinner in case someone gets upset. Where I don’t mention how another gathering of charity FDs in their finery has made me reflect upon my career, during which I have been to more of these dinners than some people have had hot dinners.

But I haven’t been to as many as charity-accounting mainstay Pesh Framjee, whose 100 per cent attendance record being highlighted every single year is as much a feature of the evening as him actually being there.

I was going to make some comment that this wasn’t really that remarkable, and could easily be summarised as “long-standing charity-sector professional attends yearly work-related function for 25 years”. But CFG chair Ian Theodoreson got there first when he joked in his speech about it being the only night Pesh got a decent meal – so I won’t bother.

Good points

While I am not penning any words about any CFG-related shindigs, equally I wouldn’t want to leave the impression that Ian’s speech at said banquet this year can be boiled down to one average joke. One of the many good points made in his, let’s call it thorough, address was about how you can’t outsource compassion, ethics and commitment. But I will pass that topic over to someone more morally respectable than me to comment on.

This year’s silver-jubilee dinner was the first since the former CFDG dropped the ‘D’ from its name (which I always thought stood for dining). So I can at least claim that I am only one of 380 or so people to have attended every CFG dinner.

But I am in danger of talking about a dinner I’m not supposed to mention, so I will return to retrospective contemplation, triggered by the fact that, when I am at these dinners I don’t like to speak of, the conversation with whoever I am sitting next to inevitably turns to how I ended up doing my current job, whatever that is.

At 41 I am not ready to write my memoirs any more than anyone is ready to read them. But if I did I would start by saying that I am an Ian. I don’t come from a long line of Ians. But when I was a lad there were loads of other Ians around. It was the Ianian age.

There were four in my primary school class alone. Kendall, Sowerby and Beveridge were the others, for the record. So although you don’t get many baby Ians these days, in my generation there were plenty. There were six at the CFG dinner, for example, including the aforementioned chair.

After school I studied economics at the University of Essex, a county in which Barkingside (home of Barnardo’s) is situated. And Barnardo’s is where CFDG had an office in its early days from where it would organise things, including its annual dinner.

After a year in Australia I ended up in the charity unit at what was then known as BDO Stoy Hayward, working for Don Bawtree, who I saw only last week at the – um – CFG dinner. I also worked with Adrian Randall, the driving force behind the formation of CFG (an organisation which went on to host an increasingly well-attended annual fundraising feast), who sadly died earlier this year.

Blessing

After five years at BDO I realised I needed a change within the charity sector. I applied for a job as PA to the then new National Trust director-general Dame Fiona Reynolds, but didn’t get past the first interview stage.

However, this may have been a blessing because, as the editor of this column (and former CFG chair) pointed out recently, I could well now be living in Swindon. This came up because Andrew told me he was going to Dame Fiona’s leaving do last month. A party that took place, as it happened, on the same night as the CFG dinner.

Anyway, to cut a long column short, I ended up as a journalist on Charity Finance 11 years ago, a process that has culminated in me not ever referencing CFG dinners.

Which is a pity really. I recalled Adrian Randall earlier, and the CFG used this year’s dinner to launch a prize in his name for ‘inspiring financial leadership’. Applicants are invited to submit ideas for new approaches and ideas in the field of charity finance. CFG chief executive Caron Bradshaw has asked if I will be putting anything forward as an initial 400-word outline submission.

Well, I don’t want to give too much away, but suffice it to say this column is around 800 words long and can easily be cut in half if necessary. Especially as its editor is one of the judges.