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Day 26 - tea in Bangkok

posted on Tuesday, February 19, 2008 09:19 AM

My 6 week journey has not got off to a good start. I arrived yesterday in Bangkok to an email from the local office of the British Council saying they would not be able to provide a speaker at the World Summit in Phuket. What? I could not believe it. The British Council in Thailand has been an active supporter of i-genius from the start. The previous country director, Peter Upton invited me to speak at their ICT conference even before we had officially launched. He also provided me with staff to arrange meetings with Thai universities and we had even explored the possibility of us making a film about social entrepreneurs in Asia. I fired off a testy email confirming today’s meeting and went to bed feeling bemused.

At breakfast I read a full page article about the British Council ‘EdFest’ language festival in the Bangkok Post so I guessed they must be pretty busy. I then walked across the tranquil Lumphini park in the bright morning sun to see Ben Happel who had kindly offered to help us with the local arrangements. I did not know him other than through some email contact and I wasn’t even sure what nationality he was (he’s German) or where was St Gallen University based, China? No, Switzerland (doh!). But I instantly liked him the moment we met. He took me to a pretty garden café on Sukhumvit Soi 12 close to the restaurant of one of Thailand’s great social enterprises Condoms and Cabbages and we had Moroccan tea followed by heart stopping pancakes and cream. We talked about Bangkok being a city no one feels indifferent about. You either love it or you hate it; and we both love it. His thesis on ‘For-profit’ social enterprises interests me as I deliberately established i-genius as a commercial organisation (for reasons I will bore you with another time). After some time discussing i-genius ‘business model’ and the Summit agenda and fee (yes I know, its expensive!) he confirmed he would like to help us with the local organisation and I was pleased to ask him to become a member of our merry arrangements team. There ought to be some ceremony for this like giving him a badge or taping his shoulders with my sword but the best I could come up with was ‘we are meeting at 4pm on the March 13th’.

Two hours with Ben flew past – a testimony to his likable personality – and I had to dash off to my meeting with the British Council. David Mathais met me at the reception. I like David very much. He has always been most helpful and if only more NGOs had people like him, they would be a lot more effective. He was though looking unusually tired and when he outlined his travel and work schedule I could see why. The Arts director David Elliot came in looking like this was not a meeting he was looking forward to. Over tea I explained the great support the British Council had provided and my complete bafflement at why they can not provide a speaker at the event. They explained the unfortunate timing and that two of the three people who could come would be out of the country and the third, the new director, was very tied up with some local difficulties. They would have loved to attend and feel social innovation is very relevant to their work but everyone was extremely over-stretched. The fatigue on their faces confirmed this.

Having worked in NatWest corporate affairs, I know it is never easy to dispense disappointing news to organisations that you have a relationship with and they did a pretty good job in smoothing it over with me. I didn’t push it too hard because we have such a strong line up for Phuket that their non attendance will not detract much from the overall quality. Maybe it’ll be their loss but I think they will be too snowed under to notice. We shook hands and I left. And, of course, being British, I thanked them for the tea.

Comments

Desmond Penrose

Tuesday, February 19, 2008 12:26 PM

Some times the BC are just not as progressive as the times require, long way to go for a cupper !

Barry Crisp

Wednesday, February 20, 2008 01:20 AM

Busy busy busy... it's a shame that the BC has pulled their speaker out from the event. But like you said towards the end of your post... it will be their loss. And as always a cup of tea helps smooth over any situation. Travel around safely, get plenty of rest, and I will see you soon!

Ben T. Happel

Wednesday, February 20, 2008 10:05 AM

No need for a badge, I feel knighted by your words already :) - thanks for the most flattering comments, the interesting conversation and the opportunity to participate in a great idea. I am looking forward to the world summit and to meeting the rest of the merry team.

Peter Ongera

Wednesday, February 20, 2008 11:16 AM

Your story makes me feel bad about missing the summit.We should hold the next one in Kenya.

Tommy Hutchinson

Thursday, February 21, 2008 07:46 AM

Thank you for all these kind comments. I have just arrived in Sydney so will update again soon. Would love to do something in Kenya and i hope all the political unrest gets resolved soon.

Peter Ongera

Monday, February 25, 2008 10:58 AM

Thanks Tommy.We are praying and hoping that peace and calm prevail in Kenya then life goes back to normal.Welcome to Kenya,a very interesting case study.Good luck