Dear members,
First of all, thank you all for your support and faith in me by electing me to lead the ASA. I appreciate it and promise to do my best to improve our organization to better serve its members and the general Assamese community at large. Of course I'll need all the help, support, and advice I can garner from you (and thanks in advance). We had an excellent beginning - we had a general meeting on Aug 8th at the home of Mukulda (Mukul Chowdhary) where we made concrete plans for several actions, e.g., we're going to have quarterly meetings - dates set and venues selected till Aug '05 (you'll receive more info on this and other matters soon); and publish the ASA newsletter in paper every month – all set for one year. One of my efforts would be to increase the paid membership which at present is much less than the number of potential members.
Additionally, I'd also like to know what our members paid or otherwise, want from this organization in both short and long run. I'd appreciate if you could write to me (bhuyan@aesop.rutgers.edu) your own personal response to this question. Regardless of the number of ASA members who receive this newsletter, I'd like to receive your valuable input and that'll be a great start - thank you! I'm planning to send out a very short questionnaire to ALL members, past and present, and find out what they want from ASA and their thoughts on how to accomplish those wants, and how to improve our organization. We also made several other decisions that will require a greater participation from you, the ASA member, e.g., making the immediate ex- President of ASA as the ex-officio of ASA exec team (national) – this will require an amendment to the ASA constitution. I'm also going to meet Mahesh Kalita (I already talked to him twice), President, AANA as soon as he recovers from his recent car accident to discuss the future of our "probaxi axomia" community at large. My sincere hope is that despite differences, real or otherwise, we all should try to find ways to work together for greater good. At the same time, we'll continue to build our future irrespective of the outcome of my efforts to have a united - as far as possible - community, at least when it comes to Bihu, Tithi, etc. More on this later, e.g., the NE Regional office of ASA, is in the process of exploring holding the Sri Sri Shankardeva Tithi together with AANA next month - I encourage those of you who are not in the NE to do the same for Tithi and Bihu - please let me know if you need any help. A brief note on the on-going flood relief efforts by AFNA: Although there will be no call to you from me (as the ASA President) to donate money, please feel free to donate either directly to AFNA or come to the music concert on Sept 18th to be held at the Six Mile Run Church, Franklin Park (near Magyar Bank on Rt. 27, NJ) - the decision is your own (for instance, I'm going to donate at this music concert). I'd also like you to think about what we can do to address such natural disasters as flood, e.g., putting political pressure (lobbying) for some engineering/scientific solution to the problem. Finally, I'm counting on you and your friends' support and help to serve this organization and its member interests through various activities that are planned or on the way. Your suggestions regarding what members want and how to achieve that would be a great start - please write to me!
Thank you very much! Regards to one and all.
Sanjib Bhuyan, NJ
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