The end of the (World Outreach) line

Early in October 2009 I hand all the work of World Outreach UK Operations Director over to John Ball, one of the other WOUK trustees. I think it would be hard to find a more suitable man than John. As an ex-Publishing Manager of Scripture Union with links to Bible Society, he will bring valuable expertise to the job in areas of management, publicity and much more.

Now that what I began to do in 2003 is complete, that is developing and documenting office systems for World Outreach, it is clearly the right time to hand over.

Janet, my wife, reminds me that beginning in Summer 2003 when I began the initial work to take over the administration of World Outreach UK from the office in Dorchester, which employed 3 people, I had to work very hard to get everything going. The aim was to take all the records that were needed for the continuance of the trust from the 3-storey office in Dorchester, and to compress them into a form that could be held by a PC and filing cabinet in a small office in Reading.

During June 2003 I had made a whistle-stop visit to World Outreach offices in Singapore, Brisbane and Auckland to evaluate their computer systems and had learnt that none of them could be utilised to provide accounting and office systems for the UK office. Researching the software market in the UK also revealed that there was nothing available that was not either simplistic or over-complex for the task we faced. It seemed remarkable to me that with thousands of UK charities with similar requirements (or so I imagined), there should be nothing suitable for us in the marketplace.

So, apart from having to convert existing supporter records into a form that we could use, it was necessary to write a fair amount of software to interface to the hybrid QuickBooks package that was providing core accounting. As the months went by, the software expanded and generated work because we able to do more with the data than we had ever done before. We began to discover which supporters were interested in what and to write to them to keep them informed about their interests.

In time the World Outreach UK website was developed and it became difficult to keep all the balls in the air, especially because the office system continually developed as my understanding of VB6 programming and web systems increased. We moved to web platforms for forex transfers which greatly reduced the cost of sending money to missionaries. This development was spurred on by the comment made by one forex bureau that banks made 60% of their profits from foreign exchange. I don't know how true this is.

So while this was all going on, a lot of normal living had to be on hold. Although we managed to take holidays away at least once a year, it did mean that for 6 years the house did not get painted and the garden did not get dug, all the jobs that a man's muscles do better! Janet proved her mettle in allowing me to get on with the job and supporting me in manic working while onlookers sometimes assumed that because she didn't go out to work time must weigh heavily on her hands.

So it is going to be a great relief to pass the responsibility on to someone else. The office routines are set up, all systems are now frozen, and it only remains to complete the online documentation for 'those that shall come after', because John will eventually pass the work on to someone else.