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!

Milky Way!

Yesterday evening I went to a concert of Habib Koité and his band. Just look at wiki for more info: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Habib_Koit%C3%A9. I loved it, relaxed mix of African and whatever influences. If you ever have the change to go listen to him, please do. You feel at home with this music and Africa comes alive again. Just hanging out there in the Milky Way with friends and this kind of music is one of great things op life!

Professor Franse

Onno is the Nestor of our department and he just celebrated his 50th birthday. As always with Onno he gave a magnificent speech about life in general and some specifics about his own life. Having worked for fast movers, McDonalds and the likes he has seen it all. Cheap calories, the whole range from poverty --> wealth --> well-being. And how do you reach that? It is a balance my friends. It is not about eating healthy always, it is about sometimes eating fries, burgers. Sometimes carrots, fried garlic. Drinking beet root juice and wine. And exercising. make it a life, get a life!

Effe een balletje trappen

We just had the celebration around our new official soccer table in the office. We had several before, but you know, with all those financial guys playing with it, it breaks down easily. So now we had a huge X-Mas project where the most creative Albert Heijn man reviped an old table and we were giving the opportunity to sponsor the players. Of course our Corporate Responsibility department got the strikerand all the proceeds went to the Johan Cruyff Foundation. Johan Cruyff, being our world soccer player from the past, is trying his utmost to give disadvantaged kids a good sport time one or the other.
Ha, that is the spirit!