Center Meetings: Round 2

I was fortunate enough to accompany the Loan Officer from the Catarman Branch II office to two of her center meetings (I was transported by one of the male Catarman Branch II Loan Officers).  In addition, we were accompanied by Shayne to the Center Meetings.  Shayne is very nice and she was very accommodating at the meetings.  She would let me know every little thing that was going on at the meeting and “made” all of the clients state their businesses and how their businesses were doing.

Most of it I could understand, it was in English, so I will give you an idea of the businesses that some of the people run with the money that is lent to them.  One lady, whose husband is a fisherman, buys fish from the company her husband works for and then sells the fish and seafood to local persons.  Before, the lady did not have enough money to purchase as many fish so she was missing out on profits.  In this instance, the loan from Grameen is supporting two persons with one loan.

Another lady, at a different branch, used the money to buy supplies in order to make peanut butter to sell to other local persons.  She said that she had used it to purchase “capital” (which equates to supplies) for P200 for the week and sold the peanut butter for P300, a profit margin of 33%.  Her loan payment was P136, giving her “spending money” for the week of P164.

The meetings go on without a hitch typically.  The meeting starts with a prayer and continues with the updating of the clients’ passbooks (the clients way of tracking their account… it is essentially a checkbook, with a little more complication).  While the passbooks are updated, so is the Payment Register.  The money is counted and verified with the Payment Register.  The only thing that changed in this meeting was the presence of Shayne, the Branch Manager.

The Branch Manager, visits 2 Center Meetings a day and usually accompanies a Loan Officer for the entire morning.  The Branch Manager typically goes to visit those Center Meetings where there has either been a problem with certain clients (to see why they are having trouble paying) or if there have been recent disbursements to clients.  This is to verify that the client has used the loan for the purpose that they had originally stated.  If they have not, the Loan Officer and the Branch Manager investigate why and resolve any discrepancies.  The loan is not revoked, but is more closely monitored.

I learned a lot in the meeting and learned the versatility of these women.  If they have a bad day selling fish, then they have so many other things at-the-ready to be sold in order to compensate… fruits, vegatables, peanut butter.  It is quite remarkable how their drive to succeed is such a force.  I hope I never get used to going to these meetings as they are always an eye-opener if I keep my eyes open.