Following my invitation, I sent three more emails to our family members in anticipation of the family meetings I hoped to hold during our Family Fun Week.

The first was simplest: I simply forwarded an email I had requested from our CPA in anticipation of year-end financial planning to maximize our giving. Read the rest of this entry »

Our family–my parents’ family–held its first family meeting, a governance meeting, last Saturday. Neither our mother (who died in 1985) nor our father (still living) participated. Indeed, the meeting came about specifically to discuss what we, his children, should do with, for, and about our father.

There were a number of obstacles we had to overcome before we could hold our meeting. For one: who would be in charge? Who should lead? Brother #1 is in Germany. Brother #2 (that’s me!) wasn’t pushing for a meeting. So it was initiated by Brother #3.

Most significant, however: the six of us live all over the world. Three of us live in Colorado (about 45 miles from one another); one of us is in Orlando, Florida; and two are in Germany–one in Hamburg and one in Mainburg–over 350 miles away from one another. Read the rest of this entry »

I got the title for this post from James E. Hughes Jr.’s Family: The Compact Among Generations. A strict, literal translation of the phrase would render it as “persons of confidence.” But the meaning that Hughes wants to convey has to do with “persons in whom [a family] can have confidence,” “trustworthy persons,” or, in brief: “confidants.”

Hughes suggests every family needs personnes de confiance, and he goes into some detail describing their duties, responsibilities, and characteristics. In sum, he says, personnes de confiance fulfill “the role of the great ‘number two’–the person whose mission is to make others great.” These are people who subordinate their own ambitions to help promote the concerns and interests of those they serve. [p. 247] Read the rest of this entry »