Dear Friends and Colleagues,
Winter has been long and is not yet over as I write these lines. There was a lot of snow all over Europe and in France there was snow as far south as Marseilles which stopped even the trains. This was totally unexpected as there is never snow in Marseilles and in this area, trains are more usually stopped by strikes!
However for AGN Europe the winter was far from inactive.
New members have been appointed both in Hamburg and Paris. For Paris there was an article in the well known French economic newspaper “La Tribune” in which Nick Blake was interviewed thus resulting in advertising our AGN association. Similar quotations about AGN were in “Accounting World”.
In the same way a new member is likely to join us soon in London. Contacts with two substantial companies in Germany have been established as well as with one in Spain in Barcelona.
Our long time friends Manual Satorra (Barcelona) and Franz Meller (Cologne) resigned from the European board due to the respective mergers of their companies.
New directors were elected early in February, Riccardo Biaggi (Lugano) and Mike Otten (Utrecht). Welcome on board to these two active and dynamic members.
A European board meeting was held on the 9 January in Paris where the regional committees chairs presented their targets and budgets for 2009. As always we kept in mind “value for money” as well as a good cash position for AGN Europe. As a result, the individual firm’s European contribution was kept unchanged i.e. 0.1 % of the turnover with a minimum of 1,500 Euros and maximum of 15,000 Euros. This was reported to you in January 2009 in the “European Progress Update” brochure and at the upcoming regional meeting in Mallorca in June, the chairs of the committees will further comment and will be pleased to hear your suggestions.
As you may recall, the chair of the Education Committee is Liam McQuaid (Dublin), the chair of the Tax Committee is Nancy Cruickshanks (London), the chair of the Business Development Committee is Werner Kleinle (Stuttgart) and I, in Paris, have the honour to chair the Membership Development Committee in close collaboration with Nick Blake.
The member visit programme started successfully in Lisbon, Madrid and Copenhagen. We will also communicate on this at the European meeting.
On the 27 March I will be pleased to welcome the International Board meeting to Paris. I have ordered fine early spring weather but one can never be sure that it will be delivered.
In this worldwide economic crisis, allow me to be optimistic on the present and future of our firms. We are in an activity where we cannot expect to become either very rich or very poor. Clients always need us in different ways. As my partners know, my guidelines in building our firm are as follows:
a) Clients being satisfied by our services
b) Time spent promptly invoiced at our regular rates, agreed by the client and paid
c) Full employment of our professional staff.
Actually the third point is the most difficult to achieve and the first two are essential.
Last but not least I am looking forward to meeting as many of you as possible in Mallorca from 11 to 13 June 2009.
Even though I have never been there I have heard that it is a beautiful and sunny place with a magnificent hotel and easy to reach from practically everywhere in Europe.
At the end of this meeting the chair of AGN Europe will be transferred with my great pleasure and full confidence to Liam McQuaid, the present vice-chair.
I dare say that thanks to the support of all the members, the great commitment and efficiency of Nick Blake and Penny Sivers in London, and the diligence of the committees, AGN Europe is a strongly established association, financially sound and with a good coverage in practically all countries in Europe.
Please receive all my thanks for your support and friendship during these years and be sure that I am ready to continue to contribute to AGN as much as I can.
François Martin
Chair, European Region
Caderas Martin
Paris, France
francois.martin@caderas-martin.com
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