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 goodwill, happiness, good health and best wishes for a very happy Labor Day celebration, 2018. As your President, I wanted to take a moment to write and thank you for your past and continued support of ANCD goals and activities—through-out the entire 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 to the promised land during the rest of 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, but we must continue to be strong and support each other. Having stated all these things, I also wish to discuss some of the issues that we must confront head-on to move ANCD forward:
The first important issue that I want to bring to member’s attention is the upcoming ANCD Annual Gala, scheduled to take place on September 29, 2018, at the Greek Orthodox Event Center at 440 White Hall Road, Albany, NY. In order for this event to go on successfully, It was mandated that members must get and sell admissions and raffle tickets to meeting the anticipated expenses and target income goals of the event. Any member who is reading this message – and has not yet collected his or her part of the tickets should please contact the Planning Committee ASAP to obtain those tickets. If you have any question about any aspect of the event, please feel free to call 518-772-6211. As we have done in the past, members are also requested/expected to help in doing a lot of party stuff to keep the event running. Please come to the next General Meeting on September 9, 2018, to hear details. That meeting will be hosted by the Akpanikat Family in Niskayuna, NY. I want to thank the Planning Committee and other members who are committed to help move this event forward.
Another important issue that I want to quickly discuss is about meeting venues: (Let me acknowledge here that I discussed this matter before in 2017; however, I want to revisit the subject due to its importance): Indeed, we can all agree that one of the greatest things that we have done at ANCD 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. It is my hope that this message will get to all families and that you will come to the next meeting fully ready to ask questions and volunteer to help in any way possible. See you on September 9thin Niskayuna.