William Penn Life, 2016 (51. évfolyam, 1-12. szám)
2016 / Különszám
Remarks by the Chair of the Board to the General Convention by Barbara A. House Prior to adjourning the 38th General Convention, outgoing Chair of the Board Barbara A. House shared with the delegates and guests her thoughts and feelings about her time as Chair and what the future holds for our beloved Association. I'm going to borrow from what Pete, Dianne and Steve Charles put in the Convention ad book: " Working together is never easy." Boy, is that true. This Board knows that more than anybody else. We've had so many high points and a few low points, too. But, you know what? We stuck together and we have made progress with no problem. "Creating change is even harder." But, I think we've done a great job creating this change. Look at your new Board. We were able to bring the average age of its members down; we were able to bring new people in; and we were able to increase the number of branches that have a member on the Board. I think you're going to have a great new Board. We've never had so many "newbies" on the Board, and I think it's great. I think that we're on the right path. "Only when advocacy finds common ground can any organization achieve its view of the future." We've shown that with our Alternate Directors. Every one of our Alternate Directors is able to be called upon. They will come at a moment's notice. They're all interested; they're all active branch members. That's what we need. If we don't keep our branches active, we can close our doors. I'm very lucky. I have a wonderful branch. These are my officers. They have all worked so hard to allow me to come here and work as hard as I did. Without them I never could have done it. So, thank you, one and all. Ursula [Markovits] chairs the audit commitee, and Tamas [Markovits] and Tom [House] are on the committee. Rose [P. Antal] is branch secretary, Carol [Truesdell] is our treasurer and Helen Molnár is our vice president. So, thank you, thank you all very much. I couldn't have done all this if you didn't pitch in at home. I think we have a great future ahead of us if we all continue to feel the way that we feel right now. If we all feel this much fraternalism, this much togetherness, there's no way we can fail. You can see all the ways our fraternal spirit has risen in the last five years. We've worked really hard in the last five years to bring everything up. We've got people like [actuary] Bob Bruce who keep us on the straight and narrow. We've got wonderful National Officers. You met most of the Home Office employees last night, and every single one of them is totally dedicated. [General Counsel] Ralph [Manning] has never, ever been away from my side during our many meetings. He was always telling me "no, you can't do that," and most of the time I didn't listen. But, he was still there. Most of the time I said I didn't care, I'm going to do it anyway. But, he was there to make sure that I did. So, thank you everyone. We are holding the [WPA] Picnic next year, we are sponsoring a trip to Europe next year, and we are conducting the Hungarian Heritage Experience next year. Those things have never been pushed aside. Nothing is cancelled, nothing is forgotten. Everything is on schedule as usual. It just takes a lot of help, and you are going to have to pitch in if you want these things to happen. If you want these things to stop, they can end really easily. But, you can't expect the Board and the Officers and Ralph and Bob and all the other outside help to pitch in and do these things. We need you to do these things. It takes a lot of people to put these things on, even the bowling and golf tournaments. So, please help. And we will continue. Please be safe going home, and I hope to see everyone in another four years. Köszönöm Szépen. Thank You. Barbara A. House and her husband, Tom. 2 0 Special Convention Edition 0 January 2016 0 William Penn Life
