President's Corner
Namaskaru!
Greetings and Wishing You all a Happy and Successful 2012.
Your KAOCA Committee for 2012 is looking forward to providing you, our vibrant community of Amchigeles in the Bay Area with a rich variety of events. Our plans call for amazing events that shall engage the young, the professionals, and the energetic veterans of our community.
We would also like to thank the outgoing 2011 KAOCA Committee for a job well done.
Our theme will be 'Engage - Entertain - Educate' for the year with the following goals:
- Engage: All ages of our KOACA community by providing activities for all segments and generations. We want to ensure that Konkani’s all across the bay area participate whole heartedly.
- Entertain: Provide entertaining events that not only promote Konkani culture but also engage our young generation with exposure to our arts, food and our beautiful language.
- Educate: Life in the Silicon Valley is fast paced with very little time for learning beyond our work spaces. We visualize a variety of forums to provide a facility to learn about some latest topics.
Apart from the traditional events of Yugadi, Summer Picnic, Sports Day, Dandiya and Diwali, we are considering seminars on topics such as personal security while using Facebook, iPad, Investing, and also a classical music event. Please send us any ideas you want us to consider with an email to kaoca@kaoca.org.
To support the organizing committee of the Konkani Sammelan 2012, KAOCA had a fund raiser dinner with an art auction on the 4th of February. The dinner was well attended. The art auction was possible due to generous donations of art by our own bay area artists. As a result of the tremendous support from participants and donors, we raised a record $38,000 from the event. Thanks to the artists, donors and participants for making the Bay area fund raiser the largest donation to the Sammelan.
We would like to encourage all KAOCA members to attend the Konkani Sammelan 2012 in New Jersey. The organizers have an amazing line up of entertainment events as well as authentic Konkani repasts that will remind you of home. It will be a great occasion to meet our Konkani bandhavas from all over the US and all over the world. Please visit www.konkani2012.com for registration.
Our first big event for 2012 will be the Ugadi function on April 21st, 2012 at the Woodside High School Auditorium, Woodside, CA. We shall send out details soon. Please mark your calendars for the same. It is a beautiful drive to Woodside, CA with one of the most beautiful auditoriums in the Bay Area. Plan on enjoying an amazing evening that we are planning for you!
KAOCA has flourished as a large vibrant community of Konkanis outside India due to the continued support from the community. KAOCA is very much dependent on the active participation from all its members, timely payment of annual membership fees and generous contributions from donors. Hence we urge everyone in the community to lend their support in every possible way. The annual membership fees and donations from its patrons is used to offset facility (which are immensely expensive in the Bay area) and other costs. Members in turn enjoy discounted fees for all KAOCA events. The annual Membership fee is $40 for a family and $20 for individuals.
If you have any feedback or would like to add links to interesting articles please let us know by mailing to webmaster@kaoca.org. We will also continue to publish the electronic version of the KAOCA Panchadik newsletter on our site. If you have any articles to contribute for Panchadik, please mail them to panchadik@kaoca.org.
Our best wishes to everyone in the KAOCA community and we are working hard to make this an exciting year! We intend to solicit your full support to make this a very exciting year of activities.
Devu Baren Karo. God Bless us all.
Warm Regards,
Archana & Milind Gokarn
Your humble KAOCA Volunteer President