boerenroem::blog

The title of this post is Maria Jacoby's email signature, and it quite well defines what we've been discussing all day long - from breakfast to bedtime. Agapè Europe's new Director, Javier Garcia, has set the future direction for Europe and is moving in an incredible speed to get there. The main topic of this meeting was how to enable one of his new paradigms: European ministry that is locally rooted. Basically he means creating a virtual organisation: different functions will be in different countries, but acting as one. Our challenge is to define a financial infrastructure that makes this work, including accounting, budgeting and reporting. Does not sound too sexy, I know, but the crosscultural dynamics and international challenges make it worthwhile to be involved in.

The team consists of 6 people from 6 different countries. There you have a Swiss (Horst), a Spanish guy (Ariel), an Estonian (Maria), a Swedish guy (Kenneth), a Brit (Graham) and a Dutchman (guess who) - let me tell you, that means lots of miscommunications, language barriers, different paradigms, different interests, heated discussions; at the same time great fun, professionalism, friendship and appreciation. It also helped that the meeting was in Barcelona, which means sunny weather, good meals, inspiring environment, good meals, a funny hotel and good meals.


Horst (Priority Director for Fund development, Finances and Operations) did a very good job to make sure we had covered all the topics by the end of the meeting. We made it a little hard on him in the morning, so he simply continued the meeting over dinner at night - and we finished it with very good results, I believe. We basically have designed the infrastructure that is needed; next steps are to implement it. I won't bother you with the details, but trust me :-)