On Friday the 7th, we celebrated Mesopartner’s 20th anniversary in Berlin.
Finally, the day we had planned for months had arrived. We were joined by many friends and collaborators who could travel to Berlin to join us, and well-wishes streamed in from all over. The venue was our favorite Hotel Grenzfall, where we hosted our Summer Academy in the preceding days.
Thankfully, Ulli had something to say when Natasha surprised us with “Say something”
Natasha Walker moderated our programme with her usual energy and grace. This meant we could all participate in the programme with our guests.
Annelien shared a video she and Britta (our resident photographer) had prepared using our favourite photos collected over 20 years. You should watch it if you have not already seen it.
You should watch the video! Click on it!
Die Gorillas, an improvisation theatre group, collected sentences and words from the audience about what it is like to work with Mesopartner. They then used these words and lines as impulses in their theatre performance. We were all in stitches! Seeing how they twisted and interpreted the jargon and phrases we use all the time was so funny.
Saying any of the following phrases would get any of our guests giggling: “competetitititiveness!”, “collaborate, collaborate, collaborate“, “bottom-up” and “we are pirates saving the world“.
During our celebrations, we also took an hour to reflect on “What matters now?” using a warm data lab format. This was an excellent way for us to reflect in more intimate groups about essential issues confronting all of us. I participated in discussions about spirituality, science, ecology and art. We held this in the lovely garden of the Hotel Grenzfall.
The warm data lab in the garden of the Hotel Grenzfall
The formal programme ended with more improvisation theatre, where we shifted our attention to food, drink and laughter until the early hours of Saturday morning.
This was a special event for me. Whoever thought that a guy from the Freestate Province in South Africa could one day be part of such a remarkable company and network? Who thought our small multinational microenterprise would have such an amazing network of friends, and collaborators all working to improve how economic development is done around the world?
For me, it is all the grace of God.
Thank you to everyone that joined, sent their wishes, or toasted our 20th anniversary with us!
To everybody who could not join us, but wanted to, we say “Cheers!”
Thank you Zdravko for traveling all the way to join our celebrations. You are a mentor and inspiration to us all.
