Greetings to alumni, friends, and members of the executive board, and committee chairs.
Since our last meeting, we’ve entered into a new year with a historical change in the White House. As I follow President Obama’s first 100 hundred days in office I can’t help admire his energy and drive to keep the country going despite the economical and political disaster he inherited; this has motivated me to continue to expect the best for St Rose’s Alumni Association, and for St Rose’s School, even through the difficult times we may face. However, no man is an island and, it takes the efforts of the entire team to achieve greatness.
We can still benefit from this economy, in order to do this we have to work tactically, through cross committees; revisiting our membership list by occupations and actively use that to our advantage to cut down on some overhead costs; and encouraging non-financial members to coordinate grassroots fundraisers, whether it is a house party, BBQ, or a simple garage sale with the proceeds coming to the association. If I can make reference to Obama again, his campaign won, not through large donations from special-interest groups and lobbyists, but from small donations given by the average Joe. As we Guyanese know, “One, one dutty build dam.” So if we get at least $5 from each person on our database we will have enough to get closer to our project planning goals.
Fundraising: Since our last meeting we have had no fundraising events due to the fact that we had back-to-back dances (Memorial and Labor Day) for the first time, but as you should know we are on schedule right now for our next event, our annual Memorial Day Dance on Saturday May 23 rd, 2009. After the success of last year’s tri-school dance (St Rose’s, St Joseph’s and St Stanislaus) we will continue to do this again this year, followed by the tea party combined with Chinese auction later in the year. A general raffle will begin at the end of the year with the drawing around February in celebration of Mashramani.
Please continue to do your part to sell as many tickets as you can, or make a contribution. These events are great but we still have room for improvement and begin to think outside of the box.
Project Planning: A special thanks to Simone Jordan McBean for representing us at last year’s prize giving in Guyana. Again, with a little extra effort we can acquire whatever we want. In my last report I mentioned that we were thinking about rescinding the scholarship funds because we were not getting any accountability from the school. However the threat of losing the awards put some fire under the administration, hence this year they delivered the signatures of all the award recipients.
This year we still have the feat of subsidizing the Information Technology training, for the year. Also we have the big venture of rebuilding the basketball court, which is in absolute dire need for a makeover. Initially we thought it would cost $8,000 now cost over $12,000. This is our big concern this year and hope we can truly reach this goal by 2010.
Treasurer: Compton continues to give nothing less than 101% and keeps our records expeditiously up-to-date. At no fault of his we have no money for new projects. This is why we depend on you to pay your membership dues. Our PayPal account has made it even simpler to give lately.
Membership: I know our current co-chairs and committee members are trying but I am little concerned about the future of our continued efforts, without a substantial membership base. I truly believe we can do better once we begin our outreach cultivation events outside of the NY tri-state area. We are excited to see how the pilot project in MD/DC/VA area goes.
We are also making baby steps to become more viral on the web by having a presence on Facebook, twitter, and other social networking sites. We encourage all our techno-savvy alums to join us on these sites so you can keep up with what is going on with the association and your fellow classmates.
Ad hoc (Reunion): I, along with the rest of the Executive Board encourage you to share your ideas and concerns with us about the operation of the Association. Please visit us at our web sitewww.strosesalumni.org where you can contact me, or any committee member. Our existence depends on you and the children of St Rose’s high school depend on us for our support. Looking forward to seeing, or meeting you at our next event, or through your correspondence.
In Serviam
Brenda Bentt-Peters, President |
