The ACI/MART/TOAP/IHAP General Assembly

If you've noticed, that's a lot of initials up there on the title. When I first joined MART, it was just MART. Then it linked with the Trust people so there was MART/TOAP. Then it linked with foreign exchange group ACI so it became MART/TOAP/ACI. I don't know when the Investment Houses decided to come in but IHAP's initials have now been added.

The four groups usually mind their own businesses for most of the year, and they even have separate conventions. They just come together during the annual general assembly... the latest one was held last night.

When the memo was sent last week (or earlier?) and they were asking for 2 ACI members to attend, Tina and I were volunteered by the others in the group. Not everyone's excited to attend these dinners. Firstly, it's a sit-down dinner where you are supposed to listen to someone talk about the economy while eating. Second, it's held in the middle of the week, and since the earliest you could sneak out is probably 9PM, you have less hours of sleep because you still have to report to work the next morning.

The first surprise was Vikki not attending. I'm used to her attending every General Assembly since I got in the dealing room. The second surprise was getting out of the car last night and realizing it's held at the Dusit Hotel Makati. It's been held at the Intercon for the last 5 years or so. He he ... I actually said yes to attending the event without really taking note of the date and venue. I just remembered about it Monday and hitched a ride to the event thinking I was gonna end up at the Intercon. Wrong!

The nametags were colorful last night, understandably so since each organization used a different color. What made me chuckle was seeing that even the food stubs were color-coded. Which prompted me to ask if I get a different meal if I have a different colored stub. The answer was no.

To make things interesting, someone thought to make a game. Each table gets a questionnaire and the table with the highest score gets a box of wine (or, each person on that table brings home a bottle of wine). Nice tactic. That had us talking with the BDO and Bloomberg people who shared our table. Not that Bloomberg wasn't talking to us ... they were nagging our boss to make a statement and allow them to quote him as the source. They don't have to name names in my opinion. Dow Jones and Manila Standard (or a similarly named paper?) would call the desk for views and are okay with keeping the source anonymous.

Back to the game. We didn't know the answers to half the questions. We started texting the absent members to see if they knew the answers. The Bloomberg guys even used their phone to surf the net. Come to think of it ... all that just to take home a bottle of wine? Ha. ha. It was fun though.

One of the speakers quoted the "May you live in iteresting times" line. He used those words to describe the developments being put into place in the financial world, and made the phrase sound like a good thing. Does he know it's actually a curse? "Interesting" means "dangerous" or even "war". Had he gone on to talk about the crisis triggered by defaulting sub-prime mortgages, he would have been on the right track.

Main course was cordon bleu, which made me wonder what was in the minds of the parents who named their kid Corbin Bleu. If you're lost ... I was referring to the teenager who co-stars in the Disney Channel TV-Movie High School Musical. Food was mostly bland, including dessert.

Snuck out of the hall 10 minutes before 9PM. Left with Malu who is commuting home and does not know how to get to the MRT station. Walked her to the station before going to the bus terminal.