President's Message 2005

Dear Fellow Maulanians,

From the cruise to the Bahamas, the Canadian Rocky Mountains, Chicago, and San Diego, I have seen this convention grow. As a Maulanian, I am proud to see that the convention has retained its valor and dignity throughout these years. I have been attending the MAMCOAANA reunions for more than ten years now, and I am very eager about this upcoming year. Not only have I maintained and gained friendships, but so have my wife and children. From being an attendee, a CME speaker, and secretary, I have moved on to approach a difficult endeavor, becoming the president of MAMCOAANA.

I am greatly honored and privileged to serve as the president of our MAMCOAANA reunion for the year 2006. This year we will take you from the fun and fantastic Atlantic City, to the fabulous and serene mountain resort, Seven Springs, for the twenty-second MAMCOAANA convention, August 3-6 2006.

With previous success and encouraging outcomes, it is a challenge to uphold the high standards and hard work. However, this task will be taken on strongly by myself and with the help of many executive members. I would like to thank Bina Kapila and Jagdish Dang for putting great efforts into making, yet, another memorable MAMCOAANA reunion, in Atlantic City. I would also like to extend my thanks to Rakesh Nanda, for maintaining a high standard CME program.

Pittsburgh is a beautiful city of mountains, rivers, and bridges. It has the Triveni Sangam of Allahabad and the mountains of Kashmir. The Seven Spring mountain resort is located about seventy miles from downtown Pittsburgh and close to the Pennsylvania turnpike. The resort has endless activities for adults, children, and the whole family. With tennis, golf, outdoor and indoor swimming pool, horseback riding, walking trails, boating, and a spa, everyone in the family will be constantly occupied and content. Downtown Pittsburgh has excellent shows, nightlife, and restaurants in which we will be visiting one evening. Along with the glamour and entertainment, we will be taking a trip to the well known Hindu Jain Temple and S.V. Temple.

Unfortunately, the attendance to these conventions is dwindling each year. I suppose that there are many contributing factors to this declination. Some major reasons may be because of prohibitive registration costs, demographic location, and lack of quality programs. Believe me, this will all change in the year 2006. We have an excellent and able work force in Pittsburgh. We are a tough steel city and we have great young Maulanians. We will try to reduce the registration costs and split the cost of each event, rather than a package deal. This year we are planning on bringing a Bollywood standard music group for the Gala dinner. We will extend and offer to young Maulanians, who maybe in training programs or in their first year of practice, a fifty percent discount on the registration fee. Hopefully, this will attract more people, and the MAMCOAANA reunions can stay alive.

These reunions have been stress-busters, friend-makers, and family extenders. When we meet, it seems as though time has moved back, and we relive these four days as the young vivacious college students we once were. I urge every Maulanian to make personal phone calls and emails to your friends, encouraging them to come to this years MAMCOAANA convention. If you have any suggestions, comments, or information to share, please post it on www.mamcoaana.org or www.spandan.com.

My best wishes and regards to all of you,

- Ved. P. Kaushik, President.