Dear All,

As you know, my time in cafebabel.com as Communication officer will come to end end by May 31 - but it is not the end as a babelian.

I have really enjoyed the last two years working with an amazing staff and a dynamic network of local teams. Therefore I can only thank you with deep gratitude for these 2 years, filled with the passion we were sharing for cafebabel.com, and the ideas we exchanged during the General Assemblies and the Babel Ackademy in the past 2 years.

I learned a lot from you and I am very proud of the results of the efforts you put into the project - a magazine that is publishing articles about the key issues for our generation, debates, which make people all over Europe participate in and a community that is growing every day.

I'd like to thank you for making me believe in our strong network - Now we can not only count on over 30 local teams in more than 20 European countries, but also on a much stronger association, willing to deal with the future of cafebabel.com.

But there is also a lot of credit I want to give to our hard working staff in Paris and Warsaw managing the website on a daily basis. A team that is constantly dealing with thousand things in the same time, but being able of keeping it's originality and creativity, no matter what. That is what makes the product cafebabel.com so truly babelian and something you won't find somewhere else.

Thank you Adri for your advise and for your energy, making people around you not only babelized, but also motivating us in the RCE to do our jobs in the best way we can. Thank you Alex for your strength and capacity of dealing with all kinds of problems – from finding a new RCE office in central Paris to making cafebabel.com known and supported by prestigious partners.

Thank you Katha, Pedro, Franci, Nabee, Jane, Fernando and Marysia for your originality and your will to challenge our readers and to question stereotypes, no matter how silly they might be - well, you made with your optimism the daily life in the RCE always very precious to me.

Thank you Julie for helping us managing with daily issues, helping me and the Spaniards, the Germans, Italians and the Polish in the office to understand the French bureaucratic system - Ole you are bringing so much to the community - I am glad to see that as a Austrian I can perfectly well work with a German ;-)

I thank our charming Webmaster Cédric for all his energy he put's into solving all technical problems and by designing graphics for our website – I am sure you all had already a technical problem he solved for you ;-) Dana and Xavier - I am glad for your efforts making the website competitve for 2010. And let's not forget about Pierre-Anthony, France and all former interns we had, who brought so much to the magazine. Let's also welcome Anna, who just started this week as new Communication intern. She will be the one sending you press releases and promoting your events - so be ready to hear from Anna very soon!

Your passion and conviction for cafebabel.com is what makes this website so special. And I am sure that your time is just about to start, but it will be not easy to keep on track inventing the first European media that is based on a sustainable economic model. But together, you can do it!

Monika And what about me now? Well, I will be working starting from September '09 on a project hand in hand with the french ministry for agriculture on making young agriculture students in France and Europe exchanging on issues about agriculture and professional training, which will be very exciting too.

I will meet a new target group for cafebabel.com, so be sure they will learn also about this magazine ;-) but I will of course continue to check on what happens at cafebabel.com - and I hope you will do so too!

Yours,

Monika