This whole week was really all about our annual volunteer conference. It's organised by the volunteers, for the volunteers, with money from VSO Bangladesh. Interestingly enough, most VSO countries have stopped funding an annual conference but we fought to keep ours this year as it's really one of only 2 events each year that get all the volunteers together in a relaxed setting. To be totally honest, most of the money for this year's conference came from 2 volunteers who had some money to spend on worthy causes from their employer Accenture. Why are they stopping conferences? Well, from what I can make out it seems to be about the general funding squeeze that most development organisations are experiencing, combined with the necessity to justify an expense in terms of how it will contribute to achieving the overall development or strategic aims. I think it's a classic case of everyone believing in the benefits of getting people together to share and discuss issues but not knowing how to measure the impact and hence justify it. In the short term I think these organisations will suffer but hopefully over time they will develop more sophisticated measuring tools that will benefit a wide range of activities.

Apparently more and more private firms are partnering with VSO to offer their employees the possibility of taking up to a year out to volunteer and then return to their job afterwards. Clearly, a far proportion of them never go back to their jobs, or resign shortly after returning, but they were probably going to leave anyway. However, those that do go back apparently have more rounded skills and hence are more valuable to their company, which of course I'm pleased about as if most firms believe this then they should value my time here. Incidentally, while they do lose employees through this scheme, they do of course gain in terms of the positive image the company that comes from contributing to charitable or voluntary work. Just a good old win-win eh?

So, back to the conference. First of all it was held in the south-east of the country on the coast at a place called Cox's Bazar. The town is named after Captain Hiram Cox who founded the town when the British took over the area in 1760 as a refuge for the Arakanese fugitives who were fleeing their homeland after being conquered by the Burmese. Previously, and still according to my trusty Lonely Planet, the region was a favourite of the Mogh pirates who, with the Portuguese, used to ravage the Bay of Bengal in the 17th century. The big thing about Cox's Bazar is of course the huge long sandy beach, and we were in the sea after every day of conference sessions before dinner. The Bangladeshis however, due to the modesty that Islam demands, will only bathe fully clothed. The only men on the beach just wearing shorts were Mike and I (Mike being a Canadian volunteer and my future flatmate in Dhaka), and all the women were wearing shalwar kameez or at least trousers and a T-shirt. Sound ridiculous? It looked ridiculous, and I think in some ways they realise this. You could see the locals standing at the water's edge, drawn to the water and yet somehow aware that going into the sea with all your clothes on was not quite right. The other truly Bangladeshi aspect to this was that they all seemed to go to the same stretch of beach, while we of course wanted to go somewhere private. Looking up the beach you could see a throng of people, hundreds if not thousands of them, all staying the in the same place. They just prefer being together, and we just prefer some space I guess.

Our conference committee had done us proud on the logistical front. We had a great hotel virtually to ourselves which boasted satellite TV, hot water (rare indeed), Internet downstairs and a chef brought in from Dhaka specially for the occasion (and the food was great). When they were looking for venues this hotel had not yet been fully built, and indeed when we arrived there were still workmen screwing in fittings here and there. In my room the electrics weren't quite right and the trip switch kept going every time you turned the bathroom light on, but they had electricians on hand, even at night, to fix it all in minutes. Even the 12 hours bus journeys was just about bearable, though on the way down we had a puncture and on the way up we had to get a volunteer to hospital in Chittagong as he was complaining of chest pains. I missed this entire episode as I was still sleeping off the ill effects of the last night party. I blame the tequila shot I did, though the rice wine punch was a tad pokey too.

The main negative point of the whole week was, somewhat tragically, the actual content of the conference. The theme this year was "Building an effective team", which didn't refer to a VSO team but rather teams within our NGO's and us within those teams. This started with sessions designed to better understand our personal styles and roles when working in a team before moving onto some ideas for making teams more effective. I was asked to run a session about personal styles, which most people assumed meant dress sense. In actual fact I think they were hoping it was about fashion as that would have been a little more fun, but in the end it went pretty well. After a brief introduction I got everyone to do a questionnaire to define their style and they then went off with people of the same style to discuss it. It turns out that I'm a Challenger, and I was one of only 2 volunteers who fell into this category. It appears, amongst other things, that I have a low tolerance for incompetence, and my direct inquisitive communicative style is often misinterpreted as being aggressive or insinuation. Well, that sounds about right eh?