general assembly
More than just a bank
Future obligations
International gathering
Central Bank president Wellink - 'I feeI l'm
speaking to a young and vital rather than a
geriatrie organization...'
It is easy to succumb to the emotion of the
moment when huge rnasses of people
united by a single purpose gather together.
But there were clearly lumps in a lot of
throats as prime minister Wim Kok noted
four factors in Rabobank's century of
uccess: 'The fitst is the stimulance to self-
help and self-organization among
ordinary people,' he said. The second is
cooperation through interdependency
aimed at socio-economic emancipation.
Then there is reeiprocity. And the fourth,
well that is rather harder to describe.
Rabobank is more than just a bank, a
place where you deposit or withdraw
cash. The added value of this bank is its
continual involvement in local
community.'
In fact, this point picked up on both Wim
Meijer and Herman Wijffels' vision for
the future. 'If our mission in the past
century was emancipation and
development,' Meijer said, 'our task for
he next century is customer value and
customer consultation.' Wijffels, after his
presentation of the 1997 figures,
commented: 'We were able to play a
productive roie in our first 100 years, for
What sNewS Issue 7*July 1998
Supervisory board chairman Wim Meijer - 'our people are ofinvaluable significance for the future
of our organization...'
both individuals and for society as a
whole. Our successful past creates
obligations for the future. We must do at
least as well as our predecessors and if
possible much better.' Doing much better
will involve creative and far-sighted
responses to a new Europe, where
increased economies of scale will be
crucial.
This is perhaps the writing on the wall.
Already, the General Assembly is more
than a purely domestic meeting - however
big - of Dutch cooperative bankers and
administrators. Rabobank International
was there with a fairly large contingent
straight from the RICO in Antwerp. We
were no more than around 100 of the
5,000 (many RICO participants had been
obliged to return home the day before).
But the very presence of Poles, North
Americans, Italians, Singaporeans, Latin
Americans, Germans, British, Australians,
Hungarians, and the other nationalities
that make up Rabobank International, at
a gathering that was quintessentially local
only 10 years ago probably says more
about our organization than anything
else. Given European developments, who
knows what next year will bring...
Raibo do Brasil staffwill recognize Tony de
Boon (second left) - here in his new roie as
representative of Rabobank Tilburg
The General Assembly is very much a social
occasion where people from around the
country get a chance to meet and chat.
