New IAAC Team

Dear IAAC members,

Many thanks for giving me an opportunity to serve you as your newly appointed IAAC President. Also, as you would be aware, a new executive committee has been formed to undertake committee's new and unfinished tasks.

I take this opportunity to introduce them to you and also warmly welcome them to IAAC. The new committee members are:

Mrs. Shuchi Raj -Vice President

Mr. Sunil Sharma - Secretary

Mr. Randip Jassal - Treasurer

Executive committee Members:

Mr. Sukhvinder Saggu

Mr. Manish Chopra

Mr. Paul Tarrant

Mrs. Paramjit Kaur

Mrs. Poonam Sharma

Mr. Jagdish Chandra

I also wish to thank all outgoing executive committee members for their hard work and dedication over the past 24 months and would like to extend special greetings to Mr. Alind Kumar for his dedication, commitment, enthusiasm and direction provided during his term in steering the association to the successful position it is in today. With the good position we are in, I hope to build upon the work Alind has done and help the IAAC community to further develop and grow.

I would also like to mention that I have been involved with the association for the past one-year and I am honoured and delighted to take the role of the President. During the year we as a group have undertaken a number of activities including the very successful Holi Mela, IAAC Annual function and recently concluded Diwali Mela in November 2004. I would like to thank everyone for making these events a grand success. Thank you very much!

As an IAAC member, you are an ambassador for the committee in its goal to become a "top" cultural organisation in Australia. Your initiative and help will go a long way in advancing the committee's goal of becoming a "top" cultural organisation.

Going forward, the foremost priority of my committee would be to making above events an annual feature of IAAC. In the new year my committee would work towards forming an Events Management Co-ordination Committee and for this I would be keen to take inputs from the community to continually improve the content and features of such events. An intended schedule of our planned activities for 2005 is:

January 26 2005 Republic Day celebrations

March 2005 Holi Mela (festival of colour)

June 2005 Annual IAAC function

August 2005 Independence Day

OCT Diwali Mela

Nov 2005 Diwali Mela

Various Ad-hoc events as advised

In closing, I would like to mention that no organisation is successful without the support of its members and the community. Over past years you all as a community have shown tremendous support and enthusiasm in all the events of IAAC. Without your support and blessing, It would not have been possible to attain the success that the committee had in the past and it won't be possible in future without your support and blessing! I therefore encourage all members to become more active in committee's activities and community, as well as attend to Committee's meetings whenever you get a chance. There's nothing like the "IAAC Family", rekindling old friendships and starting new ones.

I personally, along with my team have a vision for the association that involves on a priority:

· Increasing membership to guarantee ongoing sustainability;

· Increasing the cultural mix of members;

· Improvise on the learning's from past experiences and the experiences of other organisations;

· raising the awareness of the association in the community;

· looking at new ways of involving youth of the community and those from diverse cultural backgrounds;

· expanding the focus of the association from a mainly "Canberra Centric Organisation" to an inter-state cultural organisation.

With this I would like to add that I am pleased to discuss any issues relating to the association including general enquiries, comments and suggestions that people may have. I am looking forward to catching up with you all along with my committee over the next few months.

On behalf of my team, I wish you all a Merry Christmas and a Prosperous New Year!

With warm regards,

Deepak-Raj Gupta

IAAC President