Farewell from Outgoing EC:
Dear patrons and members of the Saikat family, Wishing you all a Merry Christmas and a Prosperous New Year. May your lives be filled with happiness, good health, peace and prosperity. As you are aware, the current Executive Committee will end its two year term on Dec 31, 2019. It was an honor for me to be a part of Saikat EC for the past six years and to serve you all as President for the past two years. On behalf of my EC, I would like to thank you all for your kind support and patronage during the last two years, which allowed us to bring quality programs to you all. Each year Saikat continues to grow in size and participation. Over the years, despite a steady growth in our community, we have continued to maintain Saikat events to be close-knit and ‘Ghorowa’. It was heartwarming to see scores of volunteers working tirelessly before and during the events in the last two years. I would like to profusely thank all Saikat volunteers whose untiring efforts made the events successful. I also take this opportunity to invite more people to come and join the camaraderie. Beyond these festivities, Saikat has a tradition of giving back to the local community through its charitable activities. The current EC tried to scale up its charitable activities through several new endeavors like packing food for the homeless teens and adults, involving young kids and teens of our community as well as working with other NGOs in the US and abroad to support the education of impoverished children. I am sure Saikat's philanthropic footprint would continue to grow in the future. While the EC tried several new things like cooking food (remember the Shorshe Chingri, Hakka Noodles, Chicken Roll, Chingri Bandhakopi, Mishti Doi, Aamer Chutney and so on?) for our events, showing Bengali movies in San Diego, arranging grand decor at Durga Puja and so on, we have been mindful of finances all throughout. Year end financial report by Treasurer will show significant positive growth during the last two years. While the exact numbers will be provided during Saraswati Puja after audit, the revenue during the 2-year term of this EC has crossed a record $200,000 mark, with a surplus of more than $50,000 in our two years. This increased revenue and surplus is due to the hard work of the EC members as well as several community members. Most of this increased revenue is not due to additional membership fees (which has been constant for the last 4 years now) and is due to an increase in corporate matching accounts created by the current EC as well as increased charity donations by our community members. I would like to thank all Saikat members and patrons who supported Saikat financially as well as to create these matching accounts at several companies. Finally, I would like to thank Shri Anindya Bhattacharya, Shri Probir Paul & Smt. Sagarika Chakraborty for serving on the Board of Advisors for the last two years. I now hand over my responsibilities to the next President, Shri Abhikesh Nag and his wonderful EC. I wish them all the best and hope Saikat reaches new heights of glory in the future. I feel relaxed going back to the life of a 'Purohit' for Saikat events.
Happy Holidays once again from all of us here at Saikat EC! With Warm Regards, Debopriyo Chowdhury President, Saikat On Behalf of Saikat EC 2018-2019
