Montréal, Quebec

There’s a good reason I have not posted to my blog in nearly a week… I have been completely immersed in Icograda meetings—with our great Secretariat Staff, the Interview Committee that is charged with replacing outgoing Managing Director Brenda Sanderson, and with the Icograda Executive Board, meeting for the third time in this 2011-2013 term. All of this is by dent of my having agreed to take on the interim role of ‘Acting Director’ with Icograda to help with the transition between Brenda’s departure at the end of April and the start-date for the new Managing Director (likely in mid-July).

On a personal note, I realize this may be of little interest to those of you who do not know what Icograda is or means; on the other hand, those who know me will likely also know that over the years Icograda sort of grew to be the “family I never had”—for better or worse (I wrote about this in a post back in 2007, here). It’s wonderful to back in a tighter orbit with Icograda, and also a little overwhelming, to be perfectly honest…

Captions for photos above: Members of the current Icograda Board, left to right, who were present in Montréal this past weekend: Jeffrey Ho (Singapore), Sophia Shih (Taiwan), Yesim Demir (Istanbul), Leimei Julia Chiu (current president, Japan), Iva Babaja (Croatia), Gaby de Abreu (South Africa), Kyle Kim (Korea), Sali Sasaki* (France), and Gitte Just (Denmark)—missing were Russell Kennedy (Australia), Vesna Brekalo (Slovenia), and Lawrence Zeegen (United Kingdom) | Brenda and Leimei at the farewell dinner for the outgoing Managing Director | Gaby, Iva, and Sali at the same dinner | Sophia, Iva, and Yesim—”smokin’-hot” outside the hotel, to quote another board member. | The view from Mount Royal on the evening following the board meeting (we were hosted to a dinner in the pavilion there by Culture Montréal along with international delegates from the UNESCO Creative Cities Network).

*On Sali’s behalf, I feel I need to explain why she is wearing sneakers and not fancy shoes by Jimmy Choo or the like in the top photo… unfortunately Sali was hit badly by a luggage cart (commandeered by a rude and pushy woman) when she landed at the Montréal airport, causing serious harm to one foot.