Article originally written by Disciples Women and posted in Disciples News Service on July 11, 2018, found here.
F or the past 10 years, Hilltop United Church of Christ in Parker, Colorado has supported Global Ministries through an AID’s benefit called Horseshoes for Cousin. The event is organized by a woman named Pam Sippel in memory of her cousin and best friend who died of AIDS in 1995 at the age of 34. They celebrate his life by hosting a horseshoe pitching tournament on our horse property near the church. Folks come out for a day of FUN and FUNDRAISING!
Fifteen years ago Grace Congregational United Church of Christ in Two Rivers, WI began a relationship with Mark Behle, a mission co-worker of the United Church of Christ in Lesotho.
People around the world face the problems of food insecurity and famine. International partners are addressing these issues through creative, life-giving agricultural projects and feeding programs.
In 2017, the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) in Oklahoma organized a Global Ministries People-to-People Pilgrimage to visit global partner, Caminante in the Dominican Republic. This is a pilgrimage the region has offered each summer for the past nine years. Each year, the group participants think of different material items to bring from Oklahoma that will support the work of Caminante. As this year’s group began planning, they decided to raise funds for Caminante’s growing summer outreach programs – the programs the group would be participating in during their pilgrimage.
He may have been the head of BMS Group’s Australian operations for only a few weeks, but Brett Field already has a clear vision of how the independent broker’s Asia-Pacific operations should grow.
It’s all about employing an aggressive wholesale business and facultative strategy throughout the region, the new chief executive of BMS Risk Solutions told GR.
“We’ve got a core development area here with some strong associations with retail brokers, and we’re keen to broaden that.
“I also believe that there will be opportunities to expand our underwriting through the managing general agents, as well as in treaty reinsurance.
“Our plans will require us to hire more individuals and teams over time, as the plan is to double in size over the next four years. It’s pretty ambitious.”
Field has been busy identifying key personnel who have market support, knowledge and, in may cases, teams behind them.
“This helps to build our core strengths so we can help retail brokers who aren’t part of a global broker to compete with innovative programs and first-class backup,” he said.
“We’re really adding many strings to our bow in terms of industry and geographic expertise; it’s quite an exciting time.”
As well as its Australian operations and UK headquarters, BMS Group has offices in Bermuda, Canada and the US from which the private, employee-owned, specialist insurance intermediary group services its clients. It is looking to make the Lloyd’s market more accessible to independent Australian retail insurance brokers.
This process began with the recruitment of ex-Aon Benfield directors Glenn Kerr and Peter Tompkins, followed closely by the hiring of Field. The former Lloyd’s broker and coverholder founded specialist liability wholesaler Insurance Market Facilities, and he believes that it is this experience that appealed to BMS.
“BMS were aware of my background and client base, and my experience matched their ambitions for the region,” Field explained.
“It’s a pretty big move as a Lloyd’s broker for BMS to establish an office off-shore. I don’t think now we can expect to be sitting in a city office in London waiting for the emails to come in.
“The model is evolving, we want to offer a more local service to the retail insurance communities in the region, while still providing access to the global markets, particularly in London and Singapore, that can add real specialist value.”
“These days we have to be at the coalface to provide a good service to retail brokers, we need to sit down and work with them strategically.”
Field sees clients who he believes are becoming increasingly dissatisfied with what he calls the “homogenisation of the big brokers”.
“We want to develop strategic partnerships to enable them to have the same punch in terms of getting a programme together, whether that be through London or Singapore,” he explained.
“That way we don’t conflict with the brokers on any issues and they can feel free to involve us face to face with the client or work in the background, depending on the client and the type of risk.”
Most of the work BMS Risk Solutions is involved in at present is with clients on Australia’s east coast and in New Zealand. However, Field said that opportunities were starting to present themselves everywhere from Singapore to Myanmar.
“We want to develop contacts and our core business of corporate construction and mining, as well as plant and equipment, focussing on the east coast first then outwards from there,” he said.
The new chief executive of BMS has had a varied insurance career in differing guises and harbours high ambitions for his business
SAN ANTONIO - GlobalSCAPE, Inc. (NYSE Amex: GSB), a leading developer of secure information exchange solutions, today announced that it has been named to Deloitte's Technology Fast 500™, a ranking that recognizes the fastest growing technology, media, telecommunications, life sciences and clean technology companies in North America. The Technology Fast 500™ companies were selected on the basis of their five-year revenue growth percentage, an indication of recent growth.
In 2004, GlobalSCAPE reported revenues of $4,930,660, compared with 2008 revenues of $15,792,242; that represents 220% growth over the five-year span. The company's customer base includes most of the Fortune 100, many local and state governments, the U.S. Army and over 1.5 million consumer users. GlobalSCAPE has won multi-million deals with the U.S. Army supporting the Single Army Logistics Enterprise (SALE) initiative, including an order in April 2009. The Army's SALE initiative focuses on upgrading the information technology that tracks personnel, equipment, munitions and other supplies throughout the worldwide logistics pipeline.
According to Jim Morris, president and CEO of GlobalSCAPE, the company's rapid growth is a testament to its employees, who are continually delivering innovative managed file transfer (MFT) products and services for the company's growing enterprise customer base. "Over the last five years, we have seen the MFT market grow rapidly as compliance and regulatory mandates have become the norm for many organizations," said Morris. "These changes have put huge demands on enterprise customers to adopt secure MFT offerings that provide end-to-end information tracking and reporting. IT budgets have also decreased during the same time period, putting further pressure on IT professionals to find solutions that are easy to deploy and require minimal IT support. We're very proud to be honored by Deloitte for our growth during these past five years."
"Deloitte's Technology Fast 500™ recognizes innovative companies that have broken down barriers to success and defied the odds with their remarkable five-year revenue growth," said Phil Asmundson, Vice Chairman and U.S. Technology, Media and Telecommunications leader, Deloitte LLP. "We congratulate GlobalSCAPE on this accomplishment."
GlobalSCAPE's Managed File Transfer products, including Enterprise File Transfer Server™, Secure FTP Server™ and its industry-leading CuteFTP® product family, allow organizations to intelligently and securely manage sensitive information in motion and at rest, across multiple locations and with customers and business partners. GlobalSCAPE also provides Wide Area File Services (WAFS) solutions that help customers collaborate across wide area networks at local area network speeds. GlobalSCAPE's MFT and WAFS solutions ensure the highest levels of compliance with government data security and privacy regulations, along with corporate security policies and mandates.
To be eligible for the 2009 Deloitte Technology Fast 500, companies must have posted 2004 operating revenues of at least $50,000 and 2008 operating revenues of at least $5 million. Revenues must have more than doubled during the five-year period. In addition, companies must own proprietary intellectual property or proprietary technology that contributes to a significant portion of operating revenues, or the company must devote a significant proportion of revenues to research and development of technology.
GlobalSCAPE, Inc. (NYSE Amex: GSB), headquartered in San Antonio, TX, is a global provider of managed file transfer (MFT) and wide area file services (WAFS) solutions for securely exchanging critical information over the Internet, within an enterprise, and with business partners. Since the release of CuteFTP in 1996, GlobalSCAPE's solutions have continued to evolve to meet the business and technology needs of an increasingly interconnected global marketplace. For more information about GlobalSCAPE's products, visit http://www.globalscape.com.
This press release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933 and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. The words "would," "exceed," "should," "anticipates," "believe," "steady," "dramatic," and variations of such words and similar expressions identify forward-looking statements, but their absence does not mean that a statement is not a forward-looking statement. These forward-looking statements are based upon the Company's current expectations and are subject to a number of risks, uncertainties and assumptions. The Company undertakes no obligation to update any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise. Among the important factors that could cause actual results to differ significantly from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements are risks that are detailed in the Company's Annual Report on Form 10-K for the 2008 calendar year, filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission on March 31, 2009.
Global Witness today called on the Southern African Development Community (SADC) to fully investigate claims that Robert Mugabe’s ZANU PF party is attempting to rig the country’s elections, due to be held on Wednesday.
The watchdog warned that there is strong evidence to suggest that ZANU PF has secured large funds from the country’s lucrative diamond mines which it may now be spending on undemocratic tactics such as tampering with the electoral roll. Whilst the run-up to the election has been largely peaceful, there remain serious concerns that the vote will be flawed.
Much needed reforms set out in the constitution have not been undertaken, including an overhaul of Zimbabwe’s partisan security sector, and there has been a growing crackdown on civil society organisations and human rights defenders.
There have also been allegations by the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) that Israeli firm Nikuv, contracted by the government of Zimbabwe, is working with the Central Intelligence Organisation (CIO) to tamper with the electoral roll. Nikuv has denied the allegations. The MDC says Nikuv is not being paid via the public purse, raising questions about how the contract is being funded. Claims have also been made in the press linking diamond finance to tactics designed to weight the poll in ZANU’s favour.
“Global Witness has serious concerns that diamond money could influence the outcome of Zimbabwe’s elections,” said Senior Campaigner Emily Armistead. “Having secured diamond revenues as a source of off-budget funding, we believe ZANU PF could be using the cash to ensure the election goes its way.”
Global Witness has exposed links between some of the mining companies operating in the diamond-rich Marange region of Zimbabwe, and members of the military and other ZANU insiders. Our research also revealed that a Hong Kong-based businessman, Sam Pa, had donated $100 million to the CIO, Zimbabwe’s feared secret police, in exchange for diamonds and other business opportunities in the country.
As guarantor of Zimbabwe’s Global Political Agreement, SADC has major role to play in deciding whether Zimbabwe’s elections are viewed as credible by the international community. However Global Witness is concerned over indications that the regional body may be willing to lower the bar on how ‘credible’ is defined as long as widespread violence is avoided during the 2013 poll.
Global Witness has urged SADC representatives to fully investigate claims of intimidation and vote-rigging and be prepared to take necessary steps if they find evidence of wrong-doing.
“As long as there’s no blood on the streets, SADC seems willing to give this election a stamp of approval. But in doing so, it would ignore the widespread intimidation and vote-rigging which appears to have taken place already. SADC must step up to its mandate and be prepared to take a stand against ZANU PF if the vote appears flawed,” said Armistead.
(1) Global Witness has raised a number of ‘red flags’ with SADC officials relating to concerns about diamond money being used to rig the elections. While Nikuv is working within a government department on the electoral roll, the company is not being paid by the Ministry of Finance. This raises questions about how it is being funded and the possibility that payment could be linked to diamonds revenues.MDC-T treasurer Roy Bennett has alleged that an NGO, CEDSA, which brought a case to the Supreme Court to ensure that elections were held by July 31st, is a CIO front potentially funded by diamond money. Allegations have been made that a deal to import grain from Zambia to Zimbabwe for distribution to voters loyal to ZANU PF was funded by Mbada Diamonds.
(2) For more detail on Global Witness concerns around Zimbabwe’s elections see the Global Witness briefing: Zimbabwe’s elections: intimidation, vote-rigging and diamonds.