The AGM on January 23, 2011 (at Creekside Community Centre, Vancouver) resulted in the election of a new Board of Directors as listed below:

Guler Aylar: President
Mediha Tarim Sener: Vice President
Vahap Ugras: Treasurer
Buket Sendemir: Secretary
Adem Aygun: Secretary
Volker Bodegom: Director
Hakan Eres: Director
Murat Vardar: Director
Guner Karatekin: Director
Sahende Peker: Director

As the new Board Members of our society, we are greeting you all and sharing our excitement and 1- year commitment to serve our society. We also thank all our members who participated, renewed their membership and donated for our charitable activities of 2011 at the AGM.

The new board members did not wait until the AGM but volunteered to work on creating our society’s vision and mission statement a few months ago under the leadership of our dear member, Ms. Ceyda Gultan. We would like to acknowledge her precious contribution with this e-mail.

Now, we are very happy to share our society’s new vision and mission statements, which were accepted by the members who were at the AGM, and we are striving to achieve them with the help and contributions of every single member of our society.

TURKISH CANADIAN SOCIETY
VISION:

To have a resourceful, compassionate, caring, vibrant community that embraces, nourishes and supports everyone, takes pride and ownership in its cultural roots, and collaborates with other Canadian organizations and charities that share the same foresight.

MISSION:

To increase the public knowledge of contemporary and traditional Turkish art and culture while creating a productive environment, as well as sharing the history and teaching the language, for the enrichment and educational benefit of the people of Canada;

· By setting up and operating a cultural centre and providing necessary tools and equipment that serve to create resources, and a workplace for cultural activities, artists and musicians.
· By organizing festivals, conferences, concerts, fine arts exhibitions, a library, community courses, participating in multicultural festivals and other means.

Additional Mission for 2011:
· To help new immigrants and their families to successfully integrate in their new homeland.

Under the guideline of this vision and mission, the new board members determined the priorities of 2011 and decided to create funds and allocate our resources to the following charitable activities:

1) April 23rd Children Festival-Coordinator: Chara Berk. We are looking for volunteers.

2) Participating in European Festival: Coordinators: Volkan Demirci – Berna Salman. We are looking for volunteers.
3) Turkish Harvest Festival in October to celebrate Republic Day with people of Vancouver. : We are looking for coordinators and volunteers.
4) Turkish Lessons for children: We are looking for coordinators and volunteers.
5) Helping new immigrants: We are looking for volunteers.

In order to achieve all these activities we need your help and we are wide open to all your ideas and projects for fundraising.

Please send your e-mail to executive@turkishcanadiansociety.org and sign up as a volunteer, coordinator, donor or sponsor.

The activities listed 1-4 above are all charitable activities, and thus we are able to provide a tax receipt for donations of $20 and above so that you can use it when you file your tax return in 2012. Helping new immigrants is our priority this year and once we are successful implementing this in our society, we might propose to add this purpose to our constitution next year.

We wish you a wonderful new year and look forward to seeing you participating and volunteering in all activities.

On behalf of the Turkish Canadian Society new board members
Guler Aylar—President

Place: Scandinavian Community Center
6540 Thomas St
, Burn­aby, BC (off Kensington south of Sprott and north of Hwy 1)

http://www.eurofestbc.ca/index.html

Tickets are now for sale: Adult: $7 Student : $5 Children under 12: FREE

Please contact Guler (guler.aylar@gmail.com) to purchase your tickets and apply for the volunteer positions.

Volunteers will work 2 hours at the food and cultural booths and get free tickets for the day and night entertainment.

Turkuaz (Turquoise) Dance Group and Turkish Music Band “Truva” will perform at the festival.

Turkish cuisine will be represented under the leadership of Fatma Telli and Mehmet Telli at the food booth.