Good afternoon my fellow
Mahamayans. On behalf of the Steering Committee it is a great
pleasure and privilege to welcome you all to Seattle for our
inaugural Annual General Meeting of the Mahamaya Girls’ College
Alumnae Association of North America. We are delighted to see the
United States and Canada represented here today and this is indeed
an international event.
This great organization that
we all gave birth today, was conceived and grew on four pillars that
are equally important. They are in alphabetical order, Neranjika
Dissanayake, Harshi Liyanage, Arushie Nugapitiya, and Sujatha Werake.
Although I am the last in the list, I get to talk to you first,
because I have gray hair. These three are some of the best human
beings I have met in my life. I love them all. I can’t think of a
better partnership than this for such a demanding job of creating an
organization to last. We have written around 10,000 emails, made
around 2,000 phone calls to each other during the last one and a
half years to make this a reality. I honor and appreciate their
expertise, patience, love for the school, love for each other, goal
oriented work, selfless sacrifice of time and energy. Thank you for
nudging me and waking me up sometimes. They are fulltime employees,
two of them have small kids, all boys. I must thank all four
families for tolerating our eccentricities of behavior working on
MGCAANA into late hours, sitting at the computer writing emails to
each other during family time, cooking with laptop on, on the
pantry-top to get instant messages, using the bathroom to have
uninterrupted telephone calls, sending the kids to Daddy to play
while doing our work, get husbands to read what we write to get
second opinions, spending hours of teleconferencing, etc. Now, we
are glad that we have more people on board to carry on our mission.
Before we turn to the day’s
events, I would like to say a few words about our beginnings and the
work we did up to now. You will hear more about it from the rest of
the Steering Committee. They gave me few minutes to talk to you.
But I decided to steal some more time.
We had been playing with
this idea of forming an alumnae association for Mahamayans for
sometime. Neranjika said one day, in a matter-of-fact way, that we
need to work on this idea without delay. Then, we really started
thinking about it seriously in November 2003. All of a sudden it
became a whole new area to learn about. We started gathering
information from books, internet, friends, and other alumni
associations on how to start an alumnae association. We did not
have a proper guide to follow, and it was like searching for a door
in the dark. But we managed to find the door with lot of hard
work. The love for our alma mater kept us going. After gathering
information for six months, we decided to have a two day workshop to
shape our dream. We decided to have the workshop on June 12th
and 13th of 2004. Neranjika gave birth to her third son
just before the meeting and still she wanted to come with the baby.
Harshi came from Oregon, and Arushi flew in from California. We
decided that Neranjika should join us by teleconferencing which she
later agreed. We met here in this same Bellevue Public Library, in
fact in the next room, on Saturday, June the 12th from
10:30-5:00 pm. We were fortunate to have Bruno Casolari, Executive
Director of Rainier Scholars, Seattle, at the time, who has a
Masters in Public Policy and Non-Profit Organizations, as our
facilitator. We wanted our organization to be a non-profit. Dr.
Mahinda Werake served as an observer at the request of the
participants. After much brainstorming, the group was able to come
up with a mission statement and a vision statement. That was indeed
a very strenuous task. Another important thing that we discussed
was whether to include Canada as well. We all agreed that we can
come together as North America. Then we had to come up with a
suitable name for the organization which was not easy. Out of
number of names that we put up on the board, finally we all agreed
on “Mahamaya Girls’ College Alumnae Association of North America.”
Since it is little too long to say, now we use the acronym MGCAANA
for general use. In the afternoon session our lawyer Harshi
Liyanage presented the Bylaws and Articles that she prepared ahead
of time for the organization. The participants discussed, reviewed
them, and formulated key components. The committee decided that
Harshi Liyanage was to do the filing process with the State of
Washington for MGCAANA which she did later.
Sunday the 13th
we met again to set up six month goals and annual goals. Tentative
six month goals were: 1. File articles, 2 prepare IRS forms, 3.
Develop membership 4. Open a bank account, and 5. Have the
organizational meeting. The tentative annual goals were: 1. First
annual general meeting, 2. Appointing the Board of Directors and
Officers 3. Publish a newsletter 4. Set up a website and 5. Discuss
gifts and donations to school.
We also discussed the
details of the layout of the website. Participants discussed about
the membership categories and came up with three categories, namely
the Regular membership, student membership and honorary membership
that has been clearly shown on the website. Then we developed a
list of prospective members that we knew in the hope of contacting
them. We did quite a bit of work during those two days. From that
time on, we knew where we were going.
In March, 2005, we were
granted the non-profit corporation status in the State of
Washington. Now we are legally a non-profit corporation and
everything happens here under the watchful eye of our lawyer Harshi
Liyanage. Neranjika who is our treasurer and web manager is so
sharp and prompt, I couldn’t get away with anything. Arushie is the
overall philosopher, debater, negotiator and critique all in one,
giving her opinions and ideas to show the direction.
Up to now, all four of us
met the expenses of the association from our pockets.
I think we can be happy
that our association became a reality today with our inaugural
Annual General Meeting. This is definitely a joyous moment for all
of us.
We are fortunate to have a
membership of 31 at the moment, ages ranging from 23 years to 70
years. We know that the membership will grow. The school will be
celebrating her 75th anniversary in one and a half years.
Let the forming of our MGCAANA be our gift from all of us who are
members, to our beloved alma mater, with gratitude, in commemoration
of her great service of 75 years to thousands of us. Mahamaya has
been known all over Sri Lanka for academic and non-academic
excellence, and became a National School in 1985 I believe, highest
grade that a school can achieve in Sri Lanka. Mahamaya has produced
tens of thousands of productive world class women, international
athletes, who live successful lives all over the world. (In fact,
Nilmini Wickramaratne (Dorabawila) who is a nominee for the Board
of Directors represented SL in SAF (South Asian Federation) Games
and won medals when she was in Grade 11. Aren’t we proud to be Mahamayans? We need the support of each and every Mahamayan who
live in North America for us to accomplish our mission.
Our vision and mission
describe our organization’s direction, goals, and objectives that
will help us to create a strategic plan for the future to benefit
our organization, individuals, and our school. We can have
long-term fixed goals and short-term variable goals. Please think of
what we can do to accomplish our mission and share your ideas with
us. We need to talk about this at length at a later time. In order
to be an effective team, we need to be united by shared goals, and
shared responsibilities, formulate priorities, have team-players,
and attain our goals.
Let me take this opportunity
to thank my fellow alumnae of the Mahamaya Old Girls’ Association,
Colombo Branch who took a keen interest in our mission and gave us
unconditional support in everyway, and the former principal Mrs.
Wijesinghe, for giving us permission to use the logo, Deputy
Principal and alumna Mrs. Vishaka Herath, and the OGA for their
support.
Thank you for believing in
us and supporting our efforts to bring our fellow Mahamayans
together in this great continent. It is amazing to see how
enthusiastic and dedicated you are. Only five of us live in
Washington State. The rest of you have come from afar for the love
of supporting our mission and love of our alma mater. Thank you so
much for coming here to participate in our historic inaugural Annual
General Meeting. Thank you in advance for your comments,
involvement, and expertise that you are willing to share with us. I
know this will be a productive meeting, generating and sharing a lot
of good ideas, friendship, and wisdom.
Yes, We are Mahamayans and
yet, we are a unique and diverse group of people. We need to
embrace the uniqueness and celebrate our diversity. Because of the
uniqueness our potential is unlimited. In this great organization
we will treat each other with dignity, respect, love and equality.
That is the key to our strength and success. That in mind, we added
a Code of Ethics to our web-site. May every member of this great
organization experience the benefits that will derive from our
vision to help this world to become a better place.
Thank you.
