Hi everyone,
some of you already met me on the global connection HO yesterday, but I’d like to introduce myself here in more detail, as I’m a newcomer to this part of the OFN world.
My name is Anselm Ibing, I grew up in Germany and have always been a lover of nature (hiking, mountains, camping trips with the scouts, climbing trees etc).
I studied International Relations and Arabic in Scotland and moved to the Middle East (Egypt, then Jordan for 5 years), where I did a masters in Integrated Water Management and worked as an environmental activist, consultant and entrepreneur.
It was through working in waste management and recycling in Jordan and doing a Permaculture Design course that I got interested in local food systems, like CSAs. I realised that most of household waste is food packaging and the only systems that provide food without packaging (apart from your own garden) are local markets and CSA-type systems. So I began to set up Jordan’s first CSA, but then had to leave the country during the Arab Spring and moved to France (I had just fallen in love with a wonderful French lady!), where I ended up running a Paris-based CSA project with 200 veggies-boxes delivered per week for almost two years. It’s called Marche sur l’Eau and originally used a boat to bring food into Paris, but it turned out to have a higher carbon footprint (despite being more expensive at the scale we were at) and so we went back to a truck. We worked with 15 farmers just outside Paris (4 on a weekly basis, the others less regular, mostly for non-perishable products). I learned a hell of a lot in that time and created a great network around local food in France. And you have to know: the French LOVE their food!! 
Last year I met Kirsten & Serenity at the OuiShare fest, where we spoke on the same panel about collaborative food systems. I also had a chance to host them for a few nights, to share a meal or two and to rock the empty ouishare-dancefloor with them! 
I was very impressed by OFN and contributed to the crowdfunding campaign, but the idea to help bring OFN to France one day had already begun to take root in my mind. Now I’ve handed over my job at the Paris project to my colleague and am looking forward to getting involved more concretely in OFN. I think there’s a great potential in France, but also in quite a few other European countries and we’ll certainly start putting the word out through our networks.
There’s an online platform that is having great success in France and that’s expanding in Europe called The Food Assembly. They’re not opensource, but we want to take a cooperation not competition approach with them and are already in touch with the founders.
All right - that’s all from me - already quite a bit. Very much looking forward to working with you all!
Anselm
BTW - I still climb trees at age 32… I even did this morning, to get an apricot for my morning muesli!