FIRST of all, my warmest greetings to my unforgetting and unforgettable daughter Gina and her doting husband Lyndon and, of course, to my great grandkid musicians Donyell and Gian Luc. God’s increasing blessings be upon you as well as upon your friends and neighbors out there on the other side of the globe. For that’s what we are in the Blessed Association of Retired Persons Foundation, Inc. (Barp). We hold that “all mankind is one sound family where each member is held great.” (That’s a line in our Barp Song of Life.)
I give my greeting and blessing together with your Mama Suzy up up there with Jesus and Mama Mary amidst the angels and saints outpouring their “Gloria in excelsis Deo” this Christmas. Okay? Love you all!
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The “ber” months, especially October, have kept our mother organization Barp agog with preparation for still better performance and state come year 2020. (Barp or originally Blessed Association of Retired Persons, Inc., now consists of Barp-BFI (Blessed Association of Retired Persons Foundation, Inc.) and the Barp-MPC or simply BMPC (Barp Multi-Purpose Cooperative). Barp’s status as a community uplifter was itself pushed up more into the limelight when BMPC garnered two high awards last October during the cooperative month activities in the City of Baguio, namely: for Best Performing Century Cooperative and Hall of Famer Century Cooperative. Both were signed on Oct. 23, 2019 by Oscar Adversalo as chairman of the Baguio City Cooperative Development Council, lawyer Franco Bawang, Jr., as CAR director of CDA, and, finally, Benjamin Magalong as mayor of the city.
Speaking of attendance in seminar-workshops, Barp-MPC/BMPC sent its BOD members and General Manager to a three-day seminar-training sponsored by the LBP Countryside Development Foundation, Inc., last Oct. 2 to 4, 2019. Venue thereof was at a hotel function room at Legarda Street, this city.
Despite relative brevity of time allotted, Resource Person and Speaker Benjamin Dy expertly tackled the subject matters on Risk and Control Self-Assessment, topically divided into (1) contextualizing risk management in cooperatives, (2) risk categories, (3) risk and control self-assessment, (4) risk treatment and options, and (5) risk management action plan designed to address eight major concerns, namely: loan co-makers, collaterals, delinquency, conflict of interest, collection efforts of past overdue accounts, and high risk tolerance. Dy put great importance on the role of good governance to bring about coop success amidst occurrence of risks, which, by the way, are “inevitable factors in business endeavors”. He remarked that there is not so much problem from the lower echelon of members in cooperatives, they just follow, usually. Problems mostly emanate from the top, the lecture trainer reminded, almost in a controlled voice.
The Barp Foundation, Inc. for its part, “revved” its officialdom and its general membership to action to solve the nagging problem of repaying the maturing bank loan incurred in the construction of the Barp Bldg. and Center for the Elderly as well as acquiring modern facilities and gadgets to be used therein. The Fred Balanag leadership still worked as it had worked at the beginning of the Foundation. He saw to it that the General Assembly confirmed the Oplan 600 previously jointly approved by the BFI Board of Trustees and the BMPC Board of Directors.
As president/CEO, he called for a special meeting of the BFI Coordinators with the board of trustees of BFI to find better more effective ways to increase membership and charitable donors to the Foundation. Chairman Juliet Bagano of the Membership Committee will really have her hands full these coming days or weeks for the group to plan and act for better performance to achieve challenging goals for coming year 2020.
But surely, not the coordinators alone are expected to positively react to the call for increase in BFI membership and fund collection efforts but every member of the Barp organization. Many hands make little work, says the proverb that we learned in the grades. Barp lecturer Juliet Awingan Palasi can no more agree to that. So with Elecom and coordinator Victor Belingon and company.
Ed. Mobile no. 09562830787