This is the website of the limited liability company registered in Slovakia as Beyond Mountains s.r.o. in March 2016.
Both the company and the website are owned and managed by me, an English woman known officially as Anne Wafer. I also answer to Annie, Anna, Anka and other variations on that theme. And quite a few people people call me Skannie, which started as a user name on an online bulletin board, but has now taken on a life of its own.
This is my first experience of company ownership, and it has already been quite an adventure just getting it registered. There were a lot of bureaucratic hoops to jump through, all made more complicated by having to do it mainly through the Slovak language, which I don’t speak fluently yet, although I‘m not too bad at reading it.
Why Beyond Mountains? First because that’s a translation of Zahorie, the name of the Slovak geographical and cultural region where my present home and company are located. Slovak people often translate the name as Behind the Mountains, but I like Beyond better.
This region got its name because it’s tucked into a corner of Western Slovakia, between the Small Carpathian Mountains and the River Morava. You have to go beyond the mountains to get there from the rest of Slovakia. The river marks the Czech border in the northern part of the region, and the Austrian border further south, where eventually it flows into the Danube close to Bratislava.
The people here have a very distinctive dialect and strong historic and cultural connections with the Moravians across the river in the eastern part of the Czech Republic.
I also chose the name because to me it symbolises exploration and discovery, going past limits and obstacles, and taking delight in the diversity that can be found beyond everyday experience.
This will be a multi-project business, to reflect my variety of interests. Think of Richard Branson but on a much smaller scale, and probably no airlines.
The types of projects will include coaching, training, continuing education, research, consulting, multi-media publishing and heritage vegetable growing.
The main themes will be understanding and valuing the diversity of life, and helping people develop to their full potential.