Conference in a Carmelite Convent

It’s the weekend between Christmas and New Year, and I’m working trying to begin the process of educating staff. Some of them are finance staff who have never been shown their budgets. This weekend they are going to be told about execution rates, how to estimate cash needs and even perform the actual estimate for next year. 

They are also being told they will be getting position descriptions (most have none, and those that exist are outdated) and the outline of a restructure will be promulgated for discussion. It’s a massive load of work for staff who really aren't prepared for much of this.

The beauty of finance, governance and systematization will, I suspect, be largely lost on them, given the extraordinary amount and mix of coceptual, legal and process work and learning being imposed in such a short time.

But we are in an Carmelite convent, in Maubara, one and a half hours west of Dili. It is also beautiful. And I’m about to upload some photos of the convent, high on a hill, and the views to my Flickr account. Edit: Sorry, Yahoo has bought Flickr and locked me out of my account. Here are a couple of the convent, and the view. Clicking on them should bring out the lovely large HD images.