November 2011 will be an exciting month, BUT IT DIDN’T TURN OUT AS PLANNED! On November 1st, Charmaine, Sue and I flew to New Orleans for the annual Acclivity Certified Consultants Conference (publishers of AccountEdge). We learned about the newest and greatest improvements in AE 2012. And, rumor had it, we will have a great time partying, touring and spa-ing.
Instead of all the fun, I took a trip to the emergency room. Turns out that I had a ruptured umbilical hernia. In other words the cattle (intestines) escaped from the corral (intestinal wall) thru a hole. The surgeon at the emergency room pushed them back in (I had a little morphine first!) but didn’t repair the hole. He told me to go home and have surgery at home. He said they could escape again without warning.
We returned to LA on Sunday, November 6th.
I saw the surgeon on Monday, had a pre-op with my internist on Tuesday and had surgery at 1 pm on Wednesday. I got a new mesh fence and he cut out a little fat! So far I’ve lost 4 pounds in the process and I hope I never find them again!
Missed my flight to Spain! Actually we had to cancel the whole trip. Makes me sad but I’m pretty surrendered to going with the flow!
So I am home in West LA and on full bed rest for the next week. There will be at least another week of mostly bed time. Then there is Thanksgiving week.
My son, Josh, is bringing his girlfriend, Cherise Ramirez, home for Thanksgiving. So we’ll have a joyous family gathering with Josh & Cherise, his godmother (and my best friend), Lynn Ludlam and her partner Steve Wichmann, plus my Dad and brother and Sue Peterson’s family and Marcia Britvan’s family, which includes Sarah and Evan Maas, Josh’s best friends and Sheri and Briana Broussard. That will be 16 of us!
I’ll go back to work on 11.28.11 as scheduled.
However, the 2012 version of AccountEdge won’t ship til 12.8.11. And, great news, we can still do January payrolls in version 2011. Acclivity will be issuing new tax tables for version 2011 at the end of December. So all our lives will be easier. I will focus on helping you review the year in preparation for taxes during the first two weeks. Let me know if you need an appointment then!
Want to hear about what I WAS going to do on my once in a lifetime trip to Spain? Keep reading then!
On November 8th Sue and I fly to Barcelona, Spain. We will be tourists for 3 days and then we are off to Valladolid for the Global Microcredit Summit 2011,where we will be assisting. Read all about it below! After the Summit, we’ll go to Madrid for 3 days and then fly home on November 21st.
The 2011 Global Microcredit Summit in Valladolid, Spain will be the 15th global or regional summit organized by the Microcredit Summit Campaign. In February of 1997, RESULTS Educational Fund convened the first Microcredit Summit, launching a nine-year Campaign to reach 100 million of the world’s poorest families, especially the women of those families, with credit for self-employment and other financial and business services by the end of 2005. This historic event, held in Washington, DC, brought together over 2,900 delegates from 137 countries.
| Then First Lady Hillary Clinton addressed the delegates of the 1997 Summit, saying “I am thrilled to see such a turnout for this Summit, which is one of the most important gatherings that we could have anywhere in our world.” |
Since 1997, the Microcredit Summit Campaign has been leading, supporting, and guiding the microfinance field to address failures in reaching the very poor. The success of the first phase of the Campaign, during which those with microloans grew from reaching 7.6 million of the world’s poorest families in 1997 to more than 100 million in 2007, fueled the decision to extend the Campaign. The Campaign’s new goals for 2015 were launched at the 2006 Global Microcredit Summit in Halifax, Canada:
The purpose of the 2011 Global Microcredit Summit is to encourage practitioners and other stakeholders to use microfinance as a means towards ending global poverty, as well as to spur progress towards fulfilling the Microcredit Summit’s two goals for 2015:
1. Working to ensure that 175 million of the world’s poorest families, especially the women of those families, are receiving credit for self-employment and other financial and business services. (With an average of five in a family, this would affect 875 million family members.)
2. Working to ensure that 100 million of the world’s poorest families move above the US$1.25 a day poverty threshold, adjusted for purchasing power parity (PPP). (With an average of five per family this would mean that 500 million people would have risen above $1.25 a day nearly completing the Millennium Development Goal on halving absolute poverty.)
| Her Majesty Queen Sofía of Spain, is the Honorary Co-Chair of the Microcredit Summit Campaign, and has attended 7 Global or Regional Summits. |
More than two thousand delegates from more than 100 countries are expected to attend the 2011 Global Microcredit Summit, including heads of state and government and other dignitaries. This summit will provide the opportunity for microfinance practitioners, advocates, investors, donors, and others committed to the Campaign’s goals to assess progress, discuss challenges to achieving the goals set for 2015, share best practices, and accelerate innovations.
The 2011 Global Microcredit Summit will include: 1) six cutting edge topics discussed in plenary, 2) over 50 workshop sessions, 3) a number of intensive day-long courses on a variety of subjects, and 4) some 30 additional associated sessions organized by delegates.