That Easter bunny had better be stocking up for a major delivery to me, as I am having the busiest week ever, and only the thought of all that chocolate is keeping me going. I’ve just finished the four Jersey piggies (if that sounds cryptic to new readers, and there are plenty of you this week, you can read all about the piggies here and here) – they’ll be set loose on the world next week. (No point mixing piggies and bunnies, of course.) And I have been settling on my agenda for this year’s advanced MLRO workshops in Guernsey.
(Quick aside: I would gladly run these workshops in other jurisdictions too, but the demand is not quite the same. Guernsey MLROs and I have a special relationship – we don’t ride round in a golf buggy together, but it’s still special.)
I run this advanced workshop twice a year, and it’s new every year, building on its predecessors to give MLROs a really advanced AML education (as demanded by nearly everyone’s legislation these days – MLROs need their own tailored training). And in the run-up to deciding what to include each year, I go into conniptions. I am always worried that this year, that most dreaded thing will happen: I will run out of things to say about AML. For the past few nights I have had my panic dreams. (Some people have exciting dreams about falling off cliffs or weathering storms at sea, but for those of us who are noted primarily for our organisational skills, the dreams focus on lack of preparedness – last night I went to a wedding and couldn’t find my shoes or my hat or the confetti.) All through the year I keep a list of “possible workshop topics” – anything that catches my eye is noted on the list, just in case. And when the big day comes for settling on the workshop agenda, I pull out the list and get busy with the red pen.
Some topics have been superseded and are no longer new and exciting. Some are not as interesting as I had thought. And some are just plain weird (“money laundering through animals” – what was I thinking?). But others still make the grade, and I start to select the eight that will make it into the workshop. And you know what: there are always more than eight topics that I would love to dissect and deliberate in depth and detail. I never run out. In fact, I have to eliminate, and save them for next year. Like I say: Best. Subject. Ever.
I hate money laundering 