A grand day out

Yesterday was the big office monthly meeting, so we all piled into jeeps at 6:30 and set off for the village of Pillur. I was full of medication to combat my cold and spent the 2.5 hour journey to Pillur drifting in and out of sleep, smacking my head against the window every time I dozed off and we went round a corner.

We arrived at Pillur at about 10:30, me with a very bruised head. There were over 40 of us in total and we all piled into a big community centre type building and sat in a circle on the floor.

There was a set agenda for the day and up first was yours truly to intorduce myself, talk about my background and what I was doing afterwards. It was quite strange being stood up in front of 40 people listening intently, then waiting as Sam translated everything I said.

After that the rest of the meeting progressed. There were some really animated discussions, of which I understood very little seeing as they were mostly spoken in Tamil. I hadn't anticipated this! It was quite hard trying to concentrate on what people were saying, as often they would start off in English, and then lapse into Tamil just as the discussion got animated (which was invariably the most interesting bit!). I tried to follow what I could, and Senthil and Mathew (pictured here, left to right) translated the gist of the discussion.



One thing that struck me half an hour in was that every single person had by that stage contributed something. Not only that, throughout the course of the day everyone took a turn at presenting their own area, which was done confidently and passionately without exception. Further, when the discussions got animated (there were some sensitive issues discussed) people weren't afraid to voice their opinions, regardless of what the more senior people thought. It struck me as one of the benefits of having a "flat" organisational structure as Keystone do. It also struck me how much responsibility people had been given, and the obvious reward it was reaping as people returned that trust by delivering.

It turned out it was a few peoples' birthdays, and lo, a cake was produced. This cake was cut up and shared amongst us with much gusto.

Lunch was done in the traditional style - we all sat in the circle with a banana leaf to eat off with our right hand - rice, potatoes, curry sauce, fish and pickle. Delicious.

To wrap things up there was a presentation done about elephants (which abound in the area) and the dangers they pose, how to tell the warning signs, and what their different noises mean. Sure makes a change from my usual accounting presentations on IAS 39 and Accounting for Defined Benefit Schemes. Give me elephants any day!