Sunday, Jan 31, 2010, 9:30 am-5:00 pm
ATASC held its annual General Assembly (GA) Meeting on Jan 31, 2010 . Roughly 40-45 ATASC members attended the event. ATASC also hosted multiple visitors from ATAA and TCA. Previous ATAA President Ms. Nurten Ural (curently with TCA as well as ATAA), ATAA President-Elect Ergun Kirlikovali, current TCA President Lincoln McCurdy and ATAA Trustee and San Fransisco Honorary Consul Bonnie Jay Kaslan attended the Assembly.
Visitors at the ATASC luncheon
Vega Sankur opened the GA with an update of the ATASC activities in 2009, followed by updates of the five chapters. In 2009, ATASC organized 23 April Children’s Day Celebration, 29 October Turkish Republic Ball and 10 November Ataturk Memorial Ceremony as well as the recent ATASC-ATAA Student Outreach Program. The chapters each organized -on the average- one community event a month. The schools in San Diego and Orange County are thriving while schools in Los Angeles and Ventura currently have low attendance. ATASC and ATASC chapters promised to continue to build their Turkish American communities, to educate public about Turkey and Turkish Americans and to have grassroots advocacy efforts.
For the ATASC Board elections, three very strong candidates had announced their candidacies to be on the ATASC Board. Two of the candidates Burcu Tansu and Sevda Aleckson were at hand during the election and were elected to the two openings by GA acclaimation. In addition, the GA recommended that the third candidate be the person to replace any board member if he/she decides to leave the board. The new ATASC Board is as follows: Naime Berkoz, Aytac Biber, Leyla Cohen, Volkan Duygun, Vega Sankur, Ersin Sengul, Ergun Tamer, Burcu Tansu, Hafize Turgut, Ayse Ulubay and Asuman Yilmaz. The Board will select positions such as Vice President, Corp Secretary, etc during their first meeting on Feb 20, 2009.
Representative McMahon Speaking
The afternoon session started with welcoming words from Honorable Hakan Tekin and then focused on Turkish American Broad Advocacy Network (TABAN) – an ATAA nationwide grassroots education campaign made possible with the sponsorship of Turkish Coalition of America. Keynote speaker Hon. Congressman McMahon, stressed the importance of speaking out and getting involved in the political process. To emphasize the importance of political involvement, Turkish Coalition of America (TCA) President Lincoln McCurdy, gave a presentation on Turkish American issues and Congressional Turkish Caucus. In the second part of the afternoon, previous ATAA President Ms. Nurten Ural, ATAA Civic Engagement Director Yenal Kucuker, and local Grassroots Coordinator Seda Bolulu held an ATAA training workshop/seminar and introduced TABAN’s vision and mission to activate Turkish-Americans in the grassroots efforts. Participants received instructional booklets on advocacy and signed up to join the local grassroots committee to ensure the continuation of these efforts in California.
Grassroots workshop/seminar also emphasized the importance of the 2010 Census, on which Americans of Turkish descent will be able to denote “Turk” as their demographic for the first time. The presentation was followed by a Q&A session, where attendees asked pertinent and engaging questions.
Young Turkish American Grassroot Advocates
We then heard from collaborative community leaders. Dr. Ali Kiran talked about House of Turkey in Balboa Park in San Diego. Sema Basol presented the new Turkish Woman’s Initiative to help Turkish girls to fulfill their potential. Dennis Aytekin asked for support of Izmir Grove project in Long Beach. Bonnie Jay Kaslan presented the very important World Affairs Council (WAC) -TCA partnership about the teacher’s education project.
