Fund-Raising Effort.
- The equivalent of twelve [12] years
faculty sponsorships was generated. At $3,000.00 per faculty-year
sponsorship, this translates into $36,000.00 pledged faculty
sponsorship during the business meeting.
- The construction/renovation cost of
one of three additional classrooms as requested by Dennis Faustino [see
Principal's Report dated August 18, 2006] was
pledged.
-
Five thousand three hundred twenty three dollars [$5,323.00] was
paid to the SMSSAFF Treasurer during the business meeting in partial fulfillment of pledges made
before and during the meeting.
- See
Minutes
of
08-26-06 Meeting [click
on hyperlink to access.] for details of the above.
Welcome and Opening Remarks by
SMSSAFF West Coast Chapter President Max
Batong. The SMSSAFF West Coast Chapter President, warmly welcomed the
alumni and friends who came from all over the United States and the
Philippines. He then went on to expound on the theme of the alumni and
friends reunion and business meeting: "Sharing and Caring". The message
was delivered in clear and inspiring composition, setting the mode of
the gathering in the proper direction. This, undoubtedly, was a
significant factor-determinant to the successful conclusion of the 2nd SMSSAFF reunion and business meeting.
Power Point Presentation by SMSSI Chairman
of the Board Rufino Bomasang.
The power point presentation by Rufino Bomasang, on the various projects
of St. Mary's School of Sagada, during the evening of 25 August 2006,
had the audience glued to the screen. Many were in awe at the modern
classrooms, laboratory facilities and the school curriculum. They never
thought that such facilities/curriculum could be in existence in a
hinterland high school such as St. Mary's School of Sagada. No doubt the
presentation played a significant factor in generating the donation
pledges reported above.
Slide Presentation by Hilda Longid Aquino.
Hilda was able to come out with a team that produced a slide
presentation depicting memorable events and faces that had alumni and
friends laughing, clapping and ribbing each other in fun. Many wanted a
copy of the CD of the slide presentation, so Hilda promised to mass
produce the slide after additional selected moments from the 3-day West
Coast Chapter sponsored SMSSAFF reunion and business meeting. The West
Coast Chapter plans to sell these CD's which will definitely help them
make good their Faculty Chair sponsorship pledge. Ay siya dadlo sa.
Current State of Affairs of SMSSAFF.
The SMSSAFF President reported that our foundation is a healthy
organization but needs all the tender loving care [TLC] we can muster
for it to take off from its infancy. See the State
of SMSSAFF Report by Lambert Sagalla for details.
Newly Elected Members of the Board of
Trustees. In consonance with the Bylaws provisions of electing one
third (1/3) of the members of the board of trustees whose terms are
expiring, the following were nominated and elected to serve three-year
terms:
-
Cora Aguilar – Colorado
-
Caesar Castro – Canada
-
Annie-Laurie
Anderson – California
-
Brian
Gulian – New York
-
Maximo
Batong – California
The entire SMSS alumni and friends community
thank you all for graciously accepting your elections.
Resolutions. It was resolved and
unanimously approved that the St. Mary's School of Sagada Science Labs
for Biology, Chemistry and Physics be named after Dr. John and Josephine
Alipit. See Resolution on J &
J [click on hyperlink to access] to
read the resolution in its entirety.
Golf Tournament. From all
appearances the golf tournament held at the Diamond Bar Golf Course in
Los Angeles California was a success. It was well organized, went on
smoothly and hopefully will able to contribute to the financial success
of the entire three-day SMSSAFF West Coast Chapter sponsored affair.
See the
Golf Tournament Report
[click on hyperlink to access.] for the winners and participants of the
golf tournament. The entire SMSS alumni and friends, students, parents
and faculty thank you all. Ay siya dadlo sa.
Crazy Night. The event was tame
at the start compared to other crazy nights during previous SMSS alumni
and friends affairs. Someone commented that the singing was monotonously
dragging. It seems the alumni and friends were just so exhausted from
the just concluded almost non-stop 5 hours or so business meeting. But
the tempo kept building up with Fred Zabala ingeniously orchestrating it
so. The affair ended with a blast with almost everybody really getting
crazy, dancing any which way, playing the gongs with gusto, crooning
love songs which they used to hoodwink sweethearts during distant pasts,
or simply baying some incoherent tunes as the crescent moon moved slowly above
the Alhambra skies. You could just imagine the craziness if it were full
moon. Manong Max's smiling demeanor was simply that of someone floating
in cloud 9 or so someone said.
Sunday Morning Mass. One would think
that after the crazy night most of the alumni and friends will
oversleep to the detriment of attending mass. Not so. I guess the
alumni were really schooled well in terms of attending mass. They came
in full force and helped fill the Holy Trinity & St. Benedict Church to
almost standing capacity. We thank the Parishioners of the Church and
Fr. Rick Byrum for graciously accommodating the SMSS alumni and friends.
Thank you, muchas gracias. Ay siya dadlo sa.
Picture Taking. Thanks to Tom Belingon we were able to
document most of the proceedings of the 2nd SMSS alumni and friends
reunion and business meeting with pictures. Click on any of the
hyperlinks below to view some pictures of the 3-day affair.
What we failed to Accomplish. There were
quite a number of organizational concerns that was not addressed during
the meeting due primarily to time constraints. I include these in the
highlights because they are glaringly highlighted in our By-laws. These
include:
- Discussing the 501 (c) (3) related
requirement of instituting a reporting system tracking SMSSAFF
disbursements to SMSSI projects following accounting standard
procedures and in consonance with IRS rulings on domestic
foundations with overseas operations
- Constituting and staffing standing
committees and some ad hoc committees.
- Coming out with an organizational chart
addressing particularly chapter formations.
- Review of the Articles of Association and
Bylaws article by article or section by section.
We will endeavor to address these concerns
during the next SMSSAFF re-union and business meeting in New Jersey on
Mid-August, 2007. May I respectfully defer these to the members of the
board of trustees for study and appropriate recommendations and/or
actions.
Submitted by:
Lambert Sagalla |
