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------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------{ July 16, 2007 }
Budget planning in the campo
I can definitely say things have been quite busy lately. Right now we are working on getting the budget together for next year, including the amount of loans that we are going to solicit from PROCA2 and in which areas we are going to solicit them. In previous years, the association has sent a request without consulting the socios, usually late, for loans and then gotten the loan around January or so, well after the harvest has started. This year we decided that we were going to plan more in advance and also consult the socios to get an idea of how much they will need for the upcoming harvest. Because there are many small campos around Juncalito and we have nearly 200 socios dispersed among them, we are visiting most of the campos and having small meetings with the socios, explaining about the budget and planning and subsequently filling out solicitudes for loans for each socio, which will then be evaluated by the Credit Committee and compiled to create a budget proposal. I'm not giving the meetings but I am helping and it is good to go to some of the communities that I either haven't been to or have only been once or twice, and see the socios where they live. Helping them understand the importance of planning is a challenge, and I'm sure the whole process will need tweaking for next year, but it is a great move in the right direction.
Apart from that, we are still working on loan recuperation. There are still many accounts that are unclear, but after a few meetings with several socios, I would say we have cleared up at least half of the cases. I am hoping by the end of the summer/before the next harvest to computerize all the loans with the Cafelio program, but am also working on creating files for each socio on how much coffee they have sold and at what price, as well as how much coffee the association has bought monthly, to get an idea of our capacity and how it has grown and changed since the association has reopened.
English classes are going well. I spoke with my adult class and we decided to extend it to be 12 weeks total instead of 6. I won't be extending the kids' class...it is like pulling teeth to get them to participate. I realize that that is a product of how school is conducted in this country, but as I only committed to 6 weeks, I am just going to leave it at that.
I had a meeting with a former PCV who now works in specialty coffee in the states yesterday. He just bought a coffee farm at his old site in the DR. We discussed the industry, coffee characteristics, export quality for specialty coffee, etc. At least with my association, we have great potential and since the quality competition we have had several interested buyers but have not had the quantity of export quality coffee available, so working on quality is a big goal for us, especially since our name recognition is growing.
A friend from my site got married in Santiago on Saturday. It wasn't a church wedding- they got married with a justice of the peace and then just had a 'presentation' and reception. I will put pictures up soon. Of course, nothing starts on time in this country so the hour was 7 but it didn't start until 9. They had 2 busses come from Juncalito for the wedding and we didn't even leave until almost 5:30, but then ended up waiting a while once we actually got there. It lasted until 2:30...few people have weddings here so it's a pretty good party when they actually do.
This week I will be doing more budget work and also getting together a presentation for Agroforestry volunteers who have their 3 month training session coming up. They wanted more training on coffee and their training is only about an hour from my site so in addition to a field session, the trainer asked me to come give a presentation. Next week the East Lakers are coming to the DR for a missions trip so I can't wait to get to see them for that!
Posted by katie at 10:54 AM | Permalink
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