Dear ANCD members:
On behalf of myself and the First Lady, Mrs. Edo Essien and the entire Essien family, I am pleased to send to you ANCD members, family and friends a message of happiness, good health and best wishes for a very happy and prosperous new year, 2018. As your President, I wanted to take a moment to write and thank you for your continued support of ANCD goals and activities—spanning the entire year 2017 and into the new year 2018. I like to say that we have come this far by faith, leaning on the Lord—and the Lord will equally continue to lead us in 2018 and show us the way where and when we go astray. Yes, we faced some challenges in 2017, but we overcame those challenges. We can do equally well or better this year, but we must continue to be strong and support each other.
Having stated all these things, I also wish to address some of the issues that we must confront head-on to move ANCD forward.
To begin with, one of the greatest things that we have done at ANCD, to this point, has been the joy of hosting ANCD meetings. Meeting hosting has become one of the most important member actions that endear members to ANCD as a group. Indeed, I would dare describe meeting hosting as one of the strongest and lasting strings that hold us together as an organization. Consider the home atmosphere, the after-meeting social hours, and the thought-provoking debates engaged by some of our frontline members. Need I add any more descriptions here? Act now by signing up to host ANCD meeting. Anytime you do this, you can be sure that you have participated in a tradition of unity and cooperation that has already set us apart from any other African organization in the Capital Region of New York.
Now to more effectively reflect on the urgency of all members showing up for ANCD meetings, I need to quickly review the above-cited reasons and characterizations of families hosting meetings. You need to know that no meeting can hold without member’s presence. Membership attendance and participation are the real forces that drive meeting deliberations leading to results. These results subsequently guide our future activities, including all family events, picnics, October Events, Christmas parties and even the Festival of Nations. By this time, you have probably already realized the reasons and relationship between families hosting meetings and how it positively impacts meeting attendance.
I am calling on all committee members to please come to the next meeting to identify the dates for various events that ANCD will be hosting. As of this date we only know about October Event which will be held on October 6, 2018, at the Polish Community Center. What we do not know are the dates for the next Picnic and Christmas Party. There may be other minor events that we need to know about. If so we need to identify the dates for them.
I strongly urge you all to come to the next meeting to be held on January 14, 2018 a location yet to be identified.
Thank you!
Bassey E. Essien, Ed.D.
ANCD President