The absolute No. 1 of my personal hitlist in 2008
My intention for this blog was to write about things that go beyond my work at self but the opening of our 1st Hub in Germany on January 24, just HAS TO BE my number one on the hit list. It was such a joy to finally open the doors after so many months of countless people contributing to the design, building and shaping what’s there now. I got to hold a speech and I was really emotional and I still remember the moment where we raised the glasses to the first incubator for social innovators in Germany.
We had 3 1/2 days of celebration, starting with a party, opening the stage to our members to use as a platform to introduce themselves with over 30 small events such as speed datings, workshops, seminars, discussion panels and much more. And we had our 1st Open Space Conference on the theme ‘give what you can, receive what you need’.
Photos of the hub in those early days you find on our Flickr account here.
But it was not just about professional development. We had fun, we finally relaxed and celebrated what we had achieved together with this stunning community and Björn, our top notch IT genius, even met the woman of his live during the kick off. And they lived happily ever after… If that’s not worth coming 1st on my hit list!!!
So, what am I specifically grateful for, you might ask? I am grateful for being in the right place, at the right time, which allows me to do this work. But more than anything else I am grateful for having the opportunity to work with all these wonderful people, to get to pursue my vision of a new generation of entrepreneurs and social innovators, which many, many others share.
I am grateful for all the people around the world who stuck out their neck to make this happen by buying shares of our cooperative, providing us social loans or guarantees to secure our bank loan, giving generously of their time and sharing their knowledge and wisdom with us.
I am grateful for all the critique, which allows us to improve the business model, the services we provide, the atmosphere we create for true collaboration resulting in ever growing social impact.
I am grateful for the personal and professional learning curve, for having partners like the GLS Gemeinschaftsbank (a social bank in Germany) and BMW Foundation at our side, for having found our dream property thanks to Anja who never gave up on finding that perfect place, our landlords and the previous tenants Druckerei Gericke who left us so many of their furniture and for our coach Gertrud who diligently and patiently mirrors us directors how to improve.
There is millions more people and things I am grateful for in this context and the great thing about this blog is to reflect it all again consciously 
