B.E.N. – Build Empower & Nurture

Well, there is little to explain – I had no money spare in this time to try and get BEN working. I kept it alive with the domain and all the registrations, but my personal financial situation went for a complete “ball of chalk”.

This is not a site for my life issues, but rather preserving Ben’s legacy, however the challenges in the last few years (now while trying to survive Covid) have become increasingly testing. Whilst none of us want this legacy to disappear, its amazing the strange and unusual challenges we have had to endure and overcome in the last 4 years. I bet all of us were wishing we had a chap like Ben around to keep us entertained, and to challenge us all to do better every day, despite our various lockdown/quarantine issues. I am sure he would have been a brilliant inspiration every day…

Our NPO issues though have become more problematic. I have had extreme difficulty with South African banks to try set up the base current account for us to start using. Some of these issues are around the fact that we have 2 awesome international trustees… An awesome presentation as to this organisation, but the banks in this country just need almost everything personal from foreign account holders that I have said “no”.

My next thought is that all 3 off us trustees remove ourselves (I actually haven’t discussed this yet with the others, so they are probably reading for the first time if my email doesn’t get there first). Why is this better? Well all three of us have a very personal link to Bernhard, and we need an organisation that can actually run, rather than being on the sidelines for 4+ years. If BEN is going to represent something, then we need something/someone to push it forward. We have all the tools, but we need a leader/driver to make it happen, and although the current trustees are all dedicated to BEN, none of us have that drive to push it forward.

I know that some of the mission statement might change, but so far our only donation in nearly 9 years has been a single R70k from a single source, donated to a single entity. This is not the ideal goal of BEN.

There are a lot more discussions involved with the trustees, and with Mrs Hiltemann (and any email input sent by interested parties)… But a few things have to be adjusted if we are going to help anyone in Bernhard’s name.

PS: All discussions welcome, our only goal is to do our respect to the person that Bernhard was.

Hi All

Just a update on our situation since June this year (this process is far longer than expected)… Small hurdles have been overcome, and we now have a legitimate Trust Number and was advised a week or so ago about our valid Non-Profit Organisations number.

For your reference (if you need, or need to double check):
Trust Registration No: IT000466/2016(N)
Non-Profit Organisations No: 180-625NPO
Mission Statement: Preserving the Life and Spirit of Africa

There are some more docs to go through before a bank account can be opened, but I have opened some dialog regarding our first possible project (no money changes hands, so no bank account or Tax clearances needed for this one).

I don’t want to let the cat out of the bag (especially if it doesn’t turn out to be a valid project), but this will hopefully be a good R70,000+ equivalent donation in the right direction.

While pending input from the other trustees, I was obliged to present a mission statement for our non-profit application documents… How does one decide on a mission statement for such a diverse project? Well, I must admit I used some Ben logic here – The simplist and most practical solution is usually the best solution…

So, for now and pending approval by the other trustees… This is our mission statement (comments are welcome):

Preserving the life and spirit of Africa

Hi All

You have obviously reached this site due to your interest in the BEN Trust and/or Bernhard Hiltemann. Thank you for keeping him and us in your memories.

What is happening?
Well, the BEN Trust finally got a small cash injection for the admin, and the process of Trust registration is underway. We know this has taken far too long, but the global markets and general money situation for our Admin donors was not ideal, so, as per our ideals of not spending donated funds, we could not get a foothold. I am happy to say that the Trust process is now underway, and the Trustees have been appointed and the legal work to finalise the Trust details is now underway.

Thank you
I personally would like to thank Rupert Finch-Hatton, Vera Hiltemann, Fergal Gaynor & Nicole Copely, who have all been instrumental in getting us this far.

Finally
This process is not as short as I would like, and there are a few more hurdles to cross before this actually comes to fruition, but the determination of the role-players are sure to ensure that we make this happen.