Home at Last!

My dear friends,

I have been a little sporadic in my messages partly because I am lazy and demand 4 hours of sleep a night, partly because access to email was not as easy as I would have liked, and partly because I am a speaker, not a writer. However, in conclusion, I would like to summarize the last couple of days for you.

Friday we went to a Kraft Foods Kasa. That's right, the very same of macaroni and cheese fame right here in the US. They have a chocolate factory about 30-45 minutes out of Sofia with approximately 650 employees. This is a Mutual Kasa that definitely has great potential for success. While other factories have laid off a significant amount of their workforce, the chocolate factory sees only growth ahead. That means stable work, great pay for the area, and payroll deduction is available.

The representatives we met with had many pointed questions, not the least of which was "...why do you keep telling everybody we need to mobilize savings? Why do we need to offer savings products at the same time as we offer lending?" This kickstarted an indepth discussion of a balanced capitalization plan with many questions going both ways to determine the best application for the various products.

After over an hour of discussion on the subject, they were genuinely impressed with the notion and agreed that they would have missed a great opportunity had they pursued the legislation without this provision (which is a sticky one since the National Bank-public, not private sees the savings mobilization as a major stumbling block). They then proceeded to tell us that they had all just about given up on the notion that they would ever be able to revive their Kasa. They had lost the legislation due to the banking crisis in 96-97, their members pulled out all but the absolute minimum to keep their accounts open, and they were making no headway towards regaining what they had lost. When the WOCCU project team showed up and started discussing the issues, they were skeptical, but the listened. Soon, they realized that other Kasas had felt the same way, but now that they were together working on the problems as one, instead of individually, they were energized again.

They look forward to a resolution to this matter in 12-18 months and are anxious to begin serving their members' needs again.

I was so thankful for the honor and privilege of being involved in this trip, that when I saw Mike Beall at the GAC, I think even he blushed a little at how I greeted him. I'll leave the details of that encounter up to Mike to share.

Your Friend,
Kelly V. Schermerhorn
President, Harvest FCU

Greetings, everybody. Now that the forum is over we had a little time to get out of Sofia and visit a Popular Kasa (like our Community Charter) in Plavdiv (about 90 minute drive SE of Sofia on an excellent highway).

John (sorry, but the real spelling and pronunciation is too difficult, so he goes by John with us) our host first gave us an orientation on how they are incorporating the WOCCU PEARLS system into their operation. The Kasas input their financial data into PEARLS for financial statements and ratios for analysis. A companion piece of software is the Loan Portfolio Analyser Tool (LPAT). This companion piece allows them to input their loan data, track payment and disbursement activity, and provides the aging mechanism for delinquency control. Each of the participating Kasas receives a new computer to accommodate the software, a printer, and a UPS (uninterruptible power source).

Each of the 14 Kasas receives training up front on PEARLS and LPAT, including classification of assets/liabilities/equity to allow for uniformity of input in creating their financial statements. Ultimately, all 14 will transmit via email their quarterly data to the WOCCU project for import into a master file which is used for tracking the project as a whole, and analysing progress as relates to the USAID agreement. Right now, however, they do not all have internet access and, in some cases, have so little computer experience that the Kasas send printouts via snail-mail and the project team manually inputs the data into the master file.

After the orientation, John took us on a walk around the old section of Plavdiv. The old section is like nothing I have seen. There are houses that have been built on top of foundations and with walls built originally by the Romans. What a great idea; if the walls have lasted 2,000 years already, then they will certainly last another generation or two. This old part of town is on the highest ground in the area, and you can see from the apex the old section on one side of you, with the ancient buildings and Turkish Tile (what I have known as Spanish Tile) roofs and, on the other side, the modern skyscrapers and apartment buildings of 15-20 stories.

The contrast is exacerbated by noting the narrow walkways between the old buildings barely wide enough for two people to walk side by side and the four lane highway carrying thousands of speeding cars, buses, and taxis through the high rises.

Lunch was an event in and of itself, all two hours of it, as our host introduced us to drinks, food, and a brief history of Plovdiv as well as Bulgaria. I am sure that I will have gained 5 kilos by the time I leave the country as every meal includes a substantial amount of cheese. However, my hosts have assured me that Bulgarian cheese is non fattening and I need not worry. I guess I'll diet when I return to Ohio.

-- Received Tuesday, February 20, 2001 5:16 AM --

John Florian, COO of the Ohio Credit Union League, and I have arrived in BEAUTIFUL Bulgaria.

We took off from Pittsburgh at 5 p.m. Sunday, landing in Charles De Galle in Paris at 6:35 a.m.. We looked into taking a tour by Taxi into Paris, but the 3 1/2 hours available did not seem to be enough, especially considering we had no Francs and none of the $$ Exchange booths were open that early.

The decision not to leave the airport turned out to be a good one, because it ended up taking an hour just to find the right gate for our connection. We flew US Airways into Paris, but were taking Air France to Sofia, and the Air France terminal is, of course, different than US Air. You don't just get onto a shuttle or moving sidewalk to get from one concourse to another, we had to leave the building, catch a bus/shuttle and ride to the other concourse. When we found the bus stop, there was a bus with a placard in the front with the number 2 on it and we were heading to concourse 2. If you know what happens when you assume then you know what happened to us. We got on the bus thinking the 2 was for the destination...HA! Stupid Americans. Fortunately, there were a lot of peope getting on the bus and it took a while; long enough for us to ask the driver and find out we were on the wrong bus. I'm sure the forty people that we had to push through to get off did not mind at all :-)

We made it to our destination and watched the sunrise while sitting in an airport cafe', eating fresh croissants.

Everything went like clockwork from there. We arrived in Sofia around 1:15, zipped through baggage claim/customs and were met by our host, John Keane, the project director for WOCCU.

After checking into our rooms, John Keane left us alone to explore the city while he went to greet other forum participants that were arriving after us. John Florian and I then set out on foot through Sofia to behold her fantastic beauty.

The centerpiece of architecture in Sofia is the Churches. There is one that was built originally in the sixth century...that is very hard for me to grasp, coming from a country that has only been around 225 years. There is a mix of купол (the bulgarian word for which Kristina tells me there is no english word in her dictionary, pronounced roughly Kopul with a long o like coke) throughout the buildings. The Kopul is a teardrop shaped structure at the top of columns and buildings, like in the Russion Orthodox churches you have probably seen in pictures. With Russian, Turkish, and Greek influence, the sights are breathtaking.

I will try to be more concise with the next few days, after I have adjusted to the seven-hour difference and am thinking more clearly.

Your Friend,

Kelly Schermerhorn