Simply put, I am in a season of expanding our connections and growing the network. This posting is made in the midst of a flurry of travel. Here is a quick review of some recent meetings where connections have been made. This is just a quick update as we head to Thailand tomorrow and during the following week, we’re scheduled to be in Turkey again.

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DRRN – Birmingham, Alabama

In mid-February, I was privileged to meet with a number of people and groups who have been actively working the Helene aftermath as part of a US-based regional meeting of response groups and networks at the Disaster Response Relational Network gathering in Birmingham, Alabama, which is a gathering I was introduced to by a friend who had attended the Istanbul meeting in December. One of the main hosting groups was ServeSource – a coordination system that caters to Christian networks and responders.

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ARC 2025 – London

In late February, I went searching for people who one would assume would be interested in a global grassroots network that seeks to save lives and care for fellow citizens. And I did.

At the conclusion of the Alliance for Responsible Citizens – the ARC 2025 conference in East London at the ExCel venue – I had over 80 new contacts from around the world. This was a diverse group of people looking to engage in meaningful ways locally and regionally, but not solely focused on disaster response. However, there was no shortage of motivated and interested people at this gathering. There were approximately 4100 attendees from around the world. I anticipate some excellent connections to come from this event. One of our International Advisors also attended and we were able to spend time with them after the event.

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Disaster EXPO – Miami

For the fourth straight Disaster EXPO gathering, I attended and continued to benefit from some excellent connections. Each of the 3 previous events have lead to some key relationships.

This was the first time IDRN had a formal booth which changed the dynamics quite a bit. Instead of introducing IDRN and it’s vision at each new vendor booth, individuals would come to the booth having already pre-sorted themselves as interested. Otherwise, they would not have stepped up to the booth. Booth days were outstanding and we’ll eventually discover which connections bear the most fruit. One of our key goals was to establish a future partnership with a specific group – which I’ll not note here. However, that went really well and we anticipate some exciting news in the coming months. We were so busy, the only picture ready to show was before the doors opened. Other than that, we had near constant traffic for both days.

A highlight was briefly seeing our friend Sergey with BunkerUSA as they were also vendors at the event. Sergey was with us in Istanbul December 2024 – as an attendee but also as one of the event sponsors! They are a valuable partner in this relaunch. Thanks Sergey!