Below is The Secretary’s Report for year 2010 – 2011. This was filed by Behroz Dutia, Secretary ZAGNY for 2008 – 2011
Good evening and Navroz Mubark to everyone!
As this is my last report as Secretary of ZAGNY, at this time I would like to convey what an honor and pleasure it was to serve you all. The past three years, 2008-2011, kept me quite busy with ZAGNY related matters. I joined as a Member-at-large, but in a couple of months was soon presented with the challenging task of being the Secretary of ZAGNY. I sincerely hope that I have met my requirements for this position and satisfied all your needs and expectations.
If I may, I would like to take this opportunity to highlight some of the major achievements and contributions of the 2008-2011 ZAGNY Board. I am very proud that we launched our effort to“Go Green” back in November 2008 and am happy to report that it has been very well received by our community. Our subscriber list continues to grow as our newsletters are now available to anyone who is interested in subscribing to them on our website. Thanks not only to Khursheed Navdaar, Dinyar Kalwachwala and Arzan Sam Wadia, who were instrumental in helping us achieve this goal, but thanks also to all the members who signed up for it and made it a big success. With Arzan’s tremendous effort to update our website, we have also now managed to project ourselves into the 21st Century. Not only is the dissemination of information regards ZAGNY news and update been ever so quick and effective; we are also now set up for an On-line payment system for Membership Enrollment and Registration Fees for our various functions, which has proven to be a very convenient and efficient tool for us and our members. The next project hopefully, will be the emailing of our ZAGNY Directory to all our ZAGNY members in the next couple of months.
Year 2010 was a busy year and it flew by fast. Our Religious Class attendance continues to grow as many of our children and grand-children have now started to attend. Thanks to Dr. Lovji Cama, Ervard Pervez Patel and all our wonderful volunteer teachers, who continue to put in their precious time and effort year after year, so that our kids and grand kids can learn and be proud of our religion and their identity. We are all very grateful to you for all your years of service and dedication to our community.
Navroz 2010 was ushered in with a jashan on the very first day of spring, March 20th, 2010 at our Darbe Mehr. It was followed by ZAGNY’s AGM. Cocktails, dinner and dancing were enjoyed by a crowd of 209 people who were in attendance. On May 1st, 2010 ZAGNY was well represented at the Revlon Walk for Women’s Cancers and it was able to raise $7,039 towards this worthy cause. On May 15th, 2010, we were fortunate to have Dasturji Khurshed Kaikobad Dastur, Vada Dasturji of Udvada Iranshah Atash Behram, amongst our midst. A beautiful jashan ceremony was performed by the Dasturji along with our own ZAGNY priests.
ZAGNY’s Annual Picnic was once again held at the Cheesequake State Park in Matawaan, NJ on July 25th, 2010, where kids and adults alike had a great time outdoors. Sadly, due to lack of enough participation our Kids Ivy Gandhi Camp had to be cancelled in July. We hope that this year we will see many of our young zarathushtis participate in it. Maybe others from neighboring states will also join in.
From August 14th – 17th, the Annual Muktad Prayers were graciously hosted at various families’ homes. On Sunday, August 17th, 2010, it was hosted by Noshir and Teshtar Irani, at the Darbe Mehr. Our Patetti function was held on August 21st, 2010 and was attended by a crowd of 109 people. On October 17th, our 25th Annual Udvada Atashbehram fund raiser was once again hosted by Erach Munshi, and Lovji and Mehru Cama at the Darbe Mehr and thanks to the generous donations of our community members a healthy sum was collected for the Critical Assistance Fund. This year we had one applicant for Scholarship and with your contributions to ZAGNY’s Scholarship Fund, we were able to award a Scholarship Loan to Framruz Patel, who is pursuing his masters in Operations Research at Columbia University. On November 7th, our Kids Halloween Party was as usual, a big hit with all of our religious class kids dressed up in various costumes and masks parading down the main hall of the Darbe Mehr. The children had a fun time with various games and prizes and getting a chance to break open the Pinnata with it’s bounty of candies and goodies.
Due to Houston hosting the XV North American Zarathushti Congress and many of our Board and community members attending it, our 2010 New Year’s Eve celebration was not scheduled. We are very proud to report that three out of the five 2010 Fezana Awards were awarded to our ZAGNY members at the Congress. Dr. Noshir Langrana was awarded the Excellence in Business or Profession Award, Kayhan Irani won the Excellence in Performing Arts, Painting or Literature Award and Ervard Soli Dastur won the Rohinton Rivetna Outstanding Zarathusthi Award. ZAGNY is now full steam ahead towards hosting the next XV1th North American Congress in August 2012. It is a huge undertaking and will require significant amount of funds and talent to host this event. We have already started our fund raising efforts with the Gara Raffle and the Auction tonite. $4,000 was also raised at the “Hidden Gems” Indian Musical Evening that was held on December 11, 2010 at the Darbe Mehr. But, we need plenty more to make it a big success as we did in 1998. We are looking for volunteers and talented members to join our Congress Committees and help us out with the various tasks that need to be undertaken at this time.
I hope many of you will step up and join us in this endeavor.
In closing, I sincerely thank all of you for supporting us in our efforts and for being a part of ZAGNY. My special thanks to Kaika Clubwalla for printing the newsletters and mailing them out on time, sometimes even at vey short notice. We truly appreciate your service that you have provided us for the last so many years. At this time, I would also like to thank all the Board members who have worked so tirelessly towards serving the ZAGNY community. It was a pleasure working with you all. We accomplished a lot, but still have a long way to go. Many of you are continuing on for another term and I wish you all well. I also wish ZAGNY and the new Board continued success in the future. I end here with a quote by Robert Frost. “We have promises to keep, and miles to go before we sleep, and miles to go before we sleep.”
Thank-you all for giving me the opportunity to serve you all!
Sincerely
Behroz Dutia March 26, 2011
Secretary – 2008-2011
Sorry, comments are closed for this post.