Toby Medlar likes participating in many things ... sports clubs, lecture societies and charitable concerns

Life As We Know It No.80: In the past two years alone he has become a member of a bowls club, an organisation that arranges lectures on local history, and the Kettering branch of the Green Party

Illustraition by Silje Eirin Aure

'I'm a joiner," Mr Medlar will proudly remark when invited to discuss his busy social life. If the person asking the question seems genuinely interested, he is happy to elaborate on this somewhat Delphic statement. "Most people my age" – Mr Medlar is in his late fifties and employed by an insurance company – "just want to sit around watching television or help their wives with the shopping. Me, now, I like participating in things.'

This, it turns out, is not an idle boast. The part of Northamptonshire in which he and his wife of 30 years reside is full of clubs, societies and institutions keen to enlarge their catchment areas, and since he went part-time at Mercury Life, Mr Medlar has been zealously expanding his range of involvement. In the past two years alone he has become a member of a bowls club, an organisation that arranges lectures on local history, and the Kettering branch of the Green Party.

Of course, some people, having signed up for an extracurricular activity, are all too passive in their affiliations. Not so Mr Medlar, who makes a point of finding out when all the meetings are held and has been known to attend committees of which he is not actually a member in the role of "observer", as a way of "getting to know how everything works".Notebook before him, constitution to hand, the organisation's tie – if there is one – neatly in place above his crisp white shirt, he is a zealous exponent of protocol, keen that all motions shall be seconded, with the words "Point of order, Mr Chairman" springing regularly to his lips.

Naturally, the sports clubs, lecture societies and charitable concerns on whom Mr Medlar's participating eye every so often falls are delighted to have both his presence in their meeting rooms and his punctiliously remitted subscription in their bank accounts.

Still, there is something undeniably odd about his round of excursions to AGMs and social functions. For a start, he is not especially interested in sport, certainly not to the extent of appearing on a bowling green or a badminton court. Neither is he in the least enthused by practical politics. Nor, curiously, do his enthusiasms last very long. Just lately, the history club and the Greens have been cast aside in favour of Oundle Heritage and the UK Independence Party. Each has a tie and an annual general meeting, and the possibilities, as Mr Medlar observes, are endless.