Fellow members and friends of IODA, I bring you greetings from the Board!
All too soon, another year is coming to a close. In 2024, IODA continued to make significant impact within and without its boundaries. The leadership worked hard to ensure that various activities were at the disposal of our beloved members. A number of members also rose to the clarion call and supported various activities, whether it was the World Café, Climate Resilience or Community of Practice series, the multiple workshops, mentoring sessions or our major activity of the year, the annual conference in Mexico.
The coming year promises to be even more exciting than 2024. Yes, more activities are planned for the membership. The mentoring programme will continue and more workshops await you in 2025. Ghana, the President’s country of birth, welcomes you to the conference of all conferences, the 4th OD World Summit, slated for 3rd to 5th September, 2025. It promises to be a major highlight in the calendar of IODA’s activities in 2025.
The aforementioned activities would not have been possible without the support and efforts of our dear members with the support of the Executives. I say THANK you to you all. I also acknowledge the EC members for the hard work they are doing. Observed from outside, the role of EC members give a false picture. I am in there with the EC and I know how weighty the work is, both physically and emotionally, personally inflicted or neighbour-induced. They are all what we signed up for and I thank you for journeying with me. I will not be free in my spirit if I don’t acknowledge the hard work of our support team who are equally busy by keeping us going. Thank you all.
The melting economic pot of the world has not spared IODA. We need the support of every member to join us in 2025 which I am declaring as “Every Member One New Member”. This agenda requires every existing IODA member to recruit at least one new member in 2025. If achieved, we would have doubled our membership by this time next year. In advance, we thank you for helping the EC to execute this mission.
On this note, I wish you all a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year in advance.
Long live OD! Long live IODA!