Day 1

After a smorg breakfast in the hotel that included, mortadella, salami, boiled eggs and toast, just to name a few of the items, we all met at 10am for our debriefing meeting. The meeting was hosted by our partner for this mission - MCTIC (the acronym is affectionately pronounced by everybody as MICKTIC)and stands for Mongolian Cooperative Training and Information Centre. Really nice people. MCTIC's Executive Director Mr. Myagmar-Ochir welcomed everyone with gracious comments about the CCA and the credit union coaching program. Also in attendenace and presenting information to us, covering a variety of areas, were B. Purev of the FRC (cu regulator),B. Munguntuya and B. Bayarmaa of the MOCCU and others. Then we were treated to a nice lunch in the hotel. After that they took us out in a 10 passenger mini van and gave us a tour of the main touristy sites of the city. In the evening we went to a cultural music and dance performance and then to dinner. The pics below kind of tell the story of the day. Tomorrow my coaching partner Heather O'Hare and I head to our first credit union. I made up a great name for our team.... O'Hare and No Hair. The credit union is located here in Ulanbatar and its called Good Life Savings and Credit Coopertative (thats cool). We'll continue to stay in this hotel for the remainder of the week so daily posts to the blog should not be a problem. ....check back later.....oh one more thing, lots of pot holes in the roads throught and around the city. Charlie