Annual Gathering

Last night we went to the Annual Meeting for our apartment Body Corporate. As apartment occupiers we all own shares in the company which owns the building and therefore are we all members of the Body Corporate. There are 45 (ish) apartments in our building and they typically get around a 50% turn out to the annual meeting. The attendance numbers have been largely due, in our opinion, that for some reason they always hold the meeting on the Sunday which is Mothers Day in Sweden. As most of the residents are either mothers, or have mothers, they decide that the day should be spent doing something other than sitting in a meeting. Have to see that we are such people ourselves and haven't been to a meeting for the past couple of years due to the clash of dates. This year they decided to try something "different" and hold the meeting on a week night. As most of the residents are retired, a weeknight was no disadvantage for them. We managed to race around the stables, do all that we needed for the horse, home and shower, and still make it to the meeting. The end result was a record turnout of 40 something residents. A good decision.

I've missed the social aspect of the annual meeting as it is usually the only time that we get to sit down with our neighbours and have a good catchup. We away for so much of the time with work and the horse that we are rarely out in the apartment complex when our neighbours are out. If we are lucky then we can share a ride in the elevators or catch a quick hello on the way to the laundry rooms. They are all nice people and I think they have now accepted that we are probably nice people took. It's only taken about 5 years, but they got there. You can't rush friendships. One gentleman came straight up to me last night and asked me how my run had gone. At first I thought he was talking about my training run from a couple of days earlier but then I realised that he was asking about the race that I ran in September of last year. Terrible that I hadn't spoken to him since then, and amazed that he had remembered the conversation. I'd completely forgotten about it.

The Annual Meeting itself was like all such meetings. Relatively boring routine of presenting the finances and electing of new members to the board. Every now and then one of the "oldies" will surprise me by rasing a question regarding a wayward number in the middle of a 3 page financial spreadsheet. You can't fool them. I had decided to take a break from the board of the Body Corporate after 4 years of service. I had been juggling just too many things and something had to go. For a while at least. I wasn't terribly concerned because I knew there were new people who were interested in participating on the board. It was nice to get a mention and recognition during the meeting.

The highlight of the evening came during a conversation I had with the couple who were siting next to us. Sune and Olga are in their mid 80s and have probably been the most difficult for us (especially me) to win over. New residents, young (by comparison), and an immigrant. Not the easiest of crowds to please. But they have slowly come around and I think that they quite enjoy seeing us now. Anyway, trying to think of something to say, I remembered that the last time I saw them, they had their great grandchildren visitng them. So I asked Sune how the young ones were getting along. They were well, he replied, and would be coming to visit during the summer. I thought that was great and asked Sune how old they were now. He paused for a while to think about it, and then he infomed me that the youngest was now 58 years old and the eldest had just turned 60. It hit me that, when I asked about the "young ones", Sune thought I was asking about his children and not his great grandchildren. I managed to avoid laughing but did relish the significance of the situation. In Sune's world, a 60 year old was a young person who fitted perfectly the description of the person I was asking about. I  thought that was great and it really highlighted for me how different we all are in how we view the world. Futhermore it was a reminded to never automatically assume that another person shares the same perspectives as you. That's what makes the world so exciting.