I would like to congratulate Damu Gedala and all previous Presidents and executive Committee members for their selfless work towards TFAS and taking the organization to new heights. Our newly elected Executive Committee is poised to continue this journey and do the best we can. Every individual on the new Committee is just as inspired as I am and we stand ready to work as a team. We want to keep the organization easily accessible to the membership and transparent of our activities. Please feel free to suggest any new ideas and/or projects that you may want us to undertake by sending an email to president@tfas.net or suggestions@tfas.net
Telugu community has grown tremendously since its inception over 25-years ago and the community needs continue to evolve. One of our goals for the next two years is to increase TFAS role to include community services and provide a home for the Telugu Community – i.e., Janani gari “Home away from home” motto. Some of the goals set for TFAS include the following and we will continue to adjust and update these goals throughout the term on as needed basis.
- Increase Life Membership by 150 members per year. We have noticed that attendance at TFAS events have increased significantly but the overall increase in membership was not proportional. We have already embarked on various membership drives and will continue to seek new and active members.
- Community Services committee will be actively looking at various community events, such as conducting medical camps, blood drives, soup kitchen services, etc. We intend to use the energy and enthusiasm of our youth members to lead and participate in these events.
- Provide quality literary, cultural and art programs in a well coordinated and well organized way. We will strive to balance local and outside talent at our events.
- We will try to partner with sister organizations; both Telugu as well as non-Telugu, to combine efforts towards a common goal. We have already started this during the last two years where we participated in the Independence Day celebrations with other Indian Organizations.
- One of the key goals of the current EC is to include as many members into our activities as we can. As explained by Bandaru Rajarao garu, each EC trustee represents a committee and they can recruit as many active members into each committee as they need. These committees within TFAS include Membership, Annual Events, Youth Services, Community Affairs, and IT Services. You can find the name and phone numbers of each Committee chair in Telugu Jyothi.
- Speaking of Telugu Jyothi, our goal is to make this bi-monthly TFAS publication self-supporting. I want to thank TJ Editorial Committee, led by Bhavaraju Murty garu, for their hard work over the years and thank the sponsors for their continued support. We are organizing ourselves to focus on accounts receivable from various advertisements and look for ways to reduce printing and mailing costs. We intend do the same with our website.
- As many of you are already aware, we have embarked on a mission to provide a physical home for TFAS, a brainchild of Dr. K.V. Rao garu.Over the last few months we have created a TFAS Building Committee under the able leadership of Ram Kolluri garu. Although our initial efforts did not yield the intended results in terms of financial commitments, we have seen a tremendous response from the membership and the community on the intent and we are confident that with support from each one of you we can full fill this dream.
Our Vice President Vasudeva Chinna, IT Chair Anantha Sudhaker Uppala and Community Chair Jayanarayana will work with the TJ Editorial Committee. Our Secretary Manju Bhargava, Annual Events chair Usha Akella and Youth Chair Girija Kolluri have already started planning for upcoming events and activities. Membership chair, Vasanth Naidu is attending various events to meet the goal he setup for increasing membership. Suresh Makam’s job as TFAS Treasurer started even before he officially took over by working closely with the outgoing EC members and “collecting money from those who pledged but haven’t paid yet”. Our EC is busy planning the next event, TFAS Picnic, on Sunday, July 25th at Johnson Park, Grove 5 on River Road in Piscataway. I hope to see you, your family and friends at this event.
The new EC selected Dr. Satyaveni Rao garu, Bhavaraju Murty garu and Damu Gedela to serve on the TFAS Advisory Committee and I thank them for agreeing to our request. In addition, all of us need your help and understanding to make TFAS a successful organization; “An Organization of Choice” for Telugu Speaking and Telugu Loving people across the world.
Until next time……………………….
Your president
Anand Paluri
