All Staff Gather for 2023 Annual Meeting -

By Petrus Kanisius, Environmental Education and Communications Coordinator

Every year, Yayasan Palung (YP) holds an annual meeting. This year, the meeting took place from January 10th to 14th.

Annual meetings like this have become somewhat of a tradition. All staff from both the conservation and research teams gather together. We like to call this “Keluarga Besar Yayasan Palung” (the big Yayasan Palung/GPOCP family).

*The “Keluarga Besar (Big Family) Yayasan Palung/GPOCP” of 2023 with all conservation and research staff.*

We kicked off the meeting on the first day with 2022 program evaluations and presented on the many achievements from last year. The next day, each program manager presented about the plans for 2023 and received feedback from other team members. On the third day, we discussed our annual collaborative work plan with the National Park Bureau, which will be finalized in the next few weeks.

*We had fun using our bodies to spell out “YP 23” to commemorate the start of the New Year! Drone photo by Gene Estrada.*

In addition to the regular annual meeting activities, we also participated in a training workshop about gender, diversity, and inclusion, to increase the capacity and knowledge of the Yayasan Palung/GPOCP staff. This workshop was run by facilitator Umi Reni from Pusat Pengembangan Sumberdaya Wanita (the Women’s Resource Development Center). Together, we worked to draft ideas for a program-wide Code of Conduct, to which all staff will commit.

*Ibu Umi Reni presents to staff during an interactive one-day workshop.*

We also held activities to further strengthen the bond between staff and foster a sense of kinship. We all traveled to Air Mata Permai Beach to play team building games and enjoy views of the sunset. We had so much fun!

*Staff play a game similar to “Simon Says.” High school volunteer interns got to throw baby powder at the losers!*

On the last day, we worked together to start moving to a new office in the town of Ketapang. We practiced “gotong royong” (an Indonesian cultural concept of working together as a community, which directly translates to “mutual cooperation”).

We all hope this year will be just as great as last year, if not better!