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| An association for and of former seminarians of St. Joseph's Juniorate, Kohuwalla, Sri Lanka. |
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26, Green Path, Kohuwalla, Sri Lanka.
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Membership
When the ex-seminarians association was formed we had a membership of 12. The membership, currently numbers at 75 and is rapidly growing. Any Oblate ex-seminarian who was in one of the four formation houses is free to join the association. The oldest member of our association is aged 62 while the youngest is aged 19. We have been not highly successful in attracting ex-seminarians who left the formation houses before 1990 or so. But we constantly promote all ex-seminarians to join hands with our association.
Our inaugural meeting was held at the Thoppuwa Church in Negombo in August 1999. Gradually the numbers gathered momentum. Meetings are held once in every four months and in one of those three meetings we coincide our annual picnic.
Locations such as St. Mary’s Church, Welligampitiya, De Mazenod House, Mattakuliya, Dev Arana, Minuwangoda, St. Joseph’s Seminary, Kohuwala and Nazareth, Wennapuwa are the places we gather for meetings. We always gratefully remember the administrators and parish priests at these centers for the generous support they always extend us.
At the start, we just went as Ex-Seminarians Association, but Fr. Irwin, our moderator suggested that we name the association after our founder and hence we came up with the name of St. Eugene’s Association, named after the Founder of the Oblates of Mary Immaculate.
Office Bearers
The office bearers are appointed by the membership for a period of three years. After the three year term, another set of office bearers need to be appointed. Our incumbent President is Mr. Susitha Raju. He’s ably assisted by Mr. Harsha Chinthaka, the Secretary and Mr. Prasanga Gamage, the Treasurer. Mr. Mark Dayan functions as the Vice-President while Mr. Prasanga Gamage is our Assistant Treasurer.
Previous Office Bearers
Our first President was Mr. Shanaka Silva, during whose watchful eyes we made tremendous progress. His presence was a big advantage and he was constantly present to share the joys and sorrows of ex-seminarians. His tenure was supported by the assistance of Mr. Janath Srikantha and Mr. Pramith Nilanga Silva, who functioned in the roles of secretary and treasurer respectively.
Mr. Joseph Niroshan succeeded Mr. Shanaka Silva in the year 2003. His busy schedule didn’t help him to commit himself hundred percent to the causes of the association, but nevertheless we kept on growing in numbers during his tenure. He was supported by Mr. Shiroman Joison Fernando as the secretary and Mr. Rienzie Cooray as the treasurer.
Roles of Individuals
Rev. Fr. Moderator: Rev. Fr. Irwin Morais is our moderator and the founder of St. Eugene’s Association. He advices the association on many counts and so far has never missed a single meeting, whereas all members of our association have missed at least one meeting due to various reasons. Our founder’s inspirational presence is a great strength to us.
President: With the President lies the course St. Eugene’s Association will take. It’s his duty to encourage new members to join the fold and to find out ways and means to improve the profile of the association. He works closely with Fr. Moderator and decides on matters that needs urgent attention. The President also conducts the quarterly meetings.
Secretary: It’s Secretary’s duty to maintain all records pertaining to the association. Apart from keeping a log on all happenings during meetings, he also maintains records of all members. Records such as the addresses of members, contact numbers and a detailed profile are available with the Secretary.
Treasurer: Treasurer deals with our financial partners, Hatton National Bank. He maintains the pass book and suggests ideas through which we can improve our bank balance.
Vice-President: The Vice-President’s role is to assist the President.
Assist Treasurer: Assistant Treasurer is the understudy to the Treasurer and usually is a banker who understands the complicities of banking.
1 comment:
hi
Glad to hear that we have developed a web site ,,, I wish to to congratualte all of you on this great effort ...
cheers
jana
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