I feel privileged to welcome you all to our A.G.M. today. You are aware of the fact any association organization must have certain focused aim or objectives

Let us first remind ourselves about our roots! It is firmly embedded in our mother land India. Our fore-fathers may have hailed from different parts of Europe in the early fifteenth century and later on many of them settled in India and married women from our land. We are therefore a mixed race of East and West

Our culture, if you care to examine it, has evolved into a unique one different in many ways from that of our fore-fathers and that of our own loved India.

We have been acknowledged and accepted in our own country as a unique race of people who by combining both the European and Indian cultures have evolved into a unique culture of our own.  It is the only community in the world that has the word – INDIAN attached to its name making it part of the Indian main-stream and at the same time giving it a unique identity of its own.  Even though we have adapted the religion, manners and ways of dressing of our European fore fathers; our habit in food and in many ways, forms a fusion of both Western and Indian culture.    Therefore the main concern of our association should be to continue to maintain our culture and our language.

We must continue to encourage the education of our children not merely basic education but job oriented courses to compete with their counterparts for prime jobs. I still maintain that we should give sincere considerations to how we must care for the sick and old members of our community.

The important factor of our association is to survive and fulfill all its objectives in total trust, in our own abilities, loyalty and discipline.

Therefore it is imperative that the above qualities must be inculcated in us right from the onset, if we want to fulfill all our objectives outlined in our Association.

Our members must be responsible and sincere and make every effort to make our Association effective and fruitful by projecting an image of oneness.  This is essential.  We must not let narrow petty thoughts – and selfish egos to cause dissent … to divide and break up our Association which has so far been very strong and vibrant.

This Association has been formed by all of us for the main purpose of keeping us together as a community – inspite of our own personal differences – whatever they may be.  If we want to be effective as a community we must stand together to progress together. The achievement of the goals of this Branch has been outstanding.  We have  projected our oneness and have carried out all our activities scheduled for the year 2006-07.  These achievements have indeed brought pride in the History of our Branch Association.

The successful completion of  activities will be high lighted by our Secretary and hence I shall not deal with them

I take this opportunity to thank all our sponsors who had come forward so enthusiastically to help us carry out our activities without which we would not have been successful.  We owe them our gratitude.

I take this opportunity to thank each one of you for the encouragement and confidence you had place in me as President of this Branch of the Association and all the members of the team.

I thank in a very special way the Vice-Presidents, Secretary , Assistant Secretary and other members of the various committees for their unstinting support and help in fulfilling the duties and responsibilities entrusted to them.