Food, food and food

Last week Wednesday at 2:00 PM I took my bike and together with Alex we went to the Food Bank in Amsterdam North. Some biking, some boating, some biking and then we arrived. After waiting for half an hour or so in what supposedly had been a small supermarket the truck with all kinds of food arrived. We started unpacking, categorizing and waiting for our customers. All those people with smaller or bigger families who have a difficult time feeding their families. Lots of fun, and really giving you the idea that this is something that helps in a direct way. I love it!

Do we follow the hamster or the panda?

Now for something completely new. Yesterday we had our Annual General Shareholders Meeting in Amsterdam. And we had a fantastic introduction to Corporate Responsibility through Friends of the Earth. They were hanging from the building, police was around, shareholders puzzled as to what those hamsters were actually talking about. It was soy my friend. And the Friends of the Earth totally disagrees with the World Wildlife Fund on this issue: how to promote sustainable produced soy. That is the question for today. Can the NGOs please agree on the direction they want to go, using the same kind of research data, coming out with a generally accepted opinion?

Now who do we follow my friends? Is it going to be the hamster or the panda?

Fun, funnier, funniest

Yesterday we had another brainstorm (or breinstorm in Dutch) with De Vrolijkheid, the Foundation to Promote Cheerfullness. We were trying and we were succesfull in establishing a program for a joint Vrolijkheid/Ahold day of fun and pleasure for some 100 kids from asylum centers. Always a pleasure to be at their offices, enought good calories to eat and our ever engaged Simone (our Community leader) baked a lovely and tasty cake. Joop, our supposedly strict Internal Audit chief, was also present and handed over enough money to give three asylum center kids some days of fun over the year. What a pleasure it is to give, to have fun and to work at what you think is of value!

Community Center open at Westfalia Tzaneen, Limpopo, South Africa

That is the Albert Heijn Foundation (http://www.ah.nl/albertheijn/article.jsp?trg=albertheijn/article.waarden.duurzaamheid.ahfoundation). Ge Happe, our European fruit and vegetables manager had the privilige to open up the community center at one of our suppliers, Westfalia. Westfalia produces mango's and avocado's. A very tangible result of the Foundation that invests in community projects in Africa. And Dorcas was also there, the Westfalia champion for community service. We go back a long time. I still miss them, after having spend so mucht time over at Tzaneen. "Are you doing the tour yourself Roland?"

The Foundation to Promote Cheerfulness

Yesterday I went to the opening ceremony of the Day of Fun of http://www.vrolijkheid.nl/. We are going to work with them and have fun! Go take a look at the small and brilliant exposition in the Public Library in Amsterdam if you are in town. The idea was to start off with 1000 and 1 encounters between refugee kids and guys and girls like me. I had the privilege to talk, joke and draw with Miski from Mogadishu. Just before she had been action as a stewardess in the opening play. Boy, could Miski laugh. I enjoyed every minute of it!

Intern internal international

Over time we have learned to love all the interns and assistants that worked with us over the years. First in Ghana, then in South Africa, now in A'dam. Most of the time ladies. You get so tired of those guys. All this macho career building, lots of talk, less action. Hé guys, bring it up down! Yesterday we said goodbye to David, our last intern so far. A man, a real man, yes. But we loved him too. Lots of guts, critique, humor, laughs. Hard working also, where do you find a man like that? Sorry to see him leave, hiring for new interns, yes we are. Write to Angelica and send your motivation and cv and we will have a look. So, now you know, we love diversity. We love arguments, culture, being different. Are you next?

The report, the report and the report

I did not know that CR reporting was so boring sometimes. It takes forever and in the end you are discussing numbers till nobody knows anymore what reasons there were to publish those number in the first place. And editing text. You edit, they edit, we edit. And sometimes coming back to the same text we had three months before...

But now we are out with the report. On line. And printed in a summary with the Annual Report. Last year I promised the investors that our new report would be a lot duller. And we kept that promise! It looks and is a lot duller than last year. Less glamour, more data, that does the trick. Actually, that was one of the remarks of the investors present at our Monday investors meeting. They missed the passion of last year. And that made me wondering. Do we indeed lack passion. I do not want to hear that. I love my job, passionately. But if that is not recognized anymore?

Anyway, we started working on the 2009 report and we will love it right from the start!