Mr. Former President, my elders, fellow comrade

Am humble and privileged to stand here to present to you as president, our road map for 2017, let me began by first acknowledging the grace of God for preserving our lives from one ending year to another, more so; we should give Him thanks for his travel mercies on members that were away during the Christmas holiday, may His grace continue to sustain us throughout this year and beyond.

Allow me to use this opportunity to once again thank you for given me the opportunity to be the custodian of the presidency seat for the next two years. I am aware of the enormities that come with occupying the seat, and the confidence you have given me, which is why Integrity & transparency will be my moto with your cooperation and our collective minds, we will succeed together.

In keeping with the tenant of our constitution in Article 4 (B) 6 -7 as it pertained to the role and functions of the president, I hereby present to this honorable house my VISION for 2017 fiscal year and state of the union address.

As we look ahead to the road before us, let us take a moment to reflect on our past, no doubt the past four years has been a period of reconciliation and stabilization, thanks to my predecessor, Mr. Festus Ehiozonmwangie, for his able leadership.

Here are my Vision Moving Forward

Short Term Plan
•    Adhered to our constitution and transparency policy
•    Restructure  our website / Logo / Facebook
•    Charitable Status
•    Foundation Status
•    26th Anniversary Celebration
•    Thanksgiving / Dinner / Lunch
•    Retreat for members & Spouse
•    Unic Club Yearly Back to School for Edo Indigene Children, Youth, & Teens
•    Patrons & Matrones  ( A second look)
•    Membership in Nigeria
•    Seminars for all ages
•    2018 Toronto ENAW Hosting

Long Term Plan
•    Source for Viable Partnership
•    Business investment,  All option to be considered  (ie: Rest House / Guest House in Benin & Options in Toronto):  (This will be a (5Yrs + plan)
•    Edo Network  Canada wide (5 Yrs Plan)
•    Back to school drives for Edo Indigenes
•    Investment in Toronto, (Ideas on investment that will generate funds)

In any organization, in a civil society, two things are paramount, Law & order and finances, our club like any organized organization or cooperation, has a binding principle called constitution, or working guideline that guild the day to day operation. This executives intend to judiciously follow every letters of our constitution, to ensure that our day to day operation are guided by its tenants, to that end, I am to seriously encouraged all members to henceforth come to meetings with your  constitution.

Recently, I had the opportunity to sit down with our finance debt, while I think we have made great strips in substantially reducing members’ debt to $7,173, I thank the former president and Mr. Otobo for their diligence in this regard. However, no organization want their monies to be outstanding.. This administration is committee to ensure that Article 3 section E pattering to finance is upheld to every letter. In time past, we have tried many different ways to collect the club’s debts, I am aware that time are tough, I am also fully aware that no organization can operate without funds, more often than not, few members have bear the burden of consistently meeting up their financial obligations to this club, supporting the club to meet her financial obligations to members when needed. This practice can no longer be allow to continue, we must all share equally in our financial responsibility to the club to ensure effective functioning. This administration will introduce a bill to that effect, if this organization is to stand the test of time, particularly with the our 26th Anniversary celebration in sight and the 2018 Toronto Enaw hosting, we all must truthfully do our parts, Article 3 clearly stated that member shall not own more the $250, starting today,  this administration has decide to give members that are owing more than $250 a latitude of six months to bring their debt to $250 by August general meeting, we will invoke the constitution penalty.

Committees
Effectively, all standing committees are by dissolved, with the exception of the 26th Anniversary, and the Business Committees. The executives has diligently worked to aligned members in different committees

26th Anniversary
This committee was constituted in the fall of 2016 with a mandate to look at the feasibility and to recommend to the house the best way that we can celebrate our silver jubilee., the original mandate for this stand. The executive has made a very minor change to the committee, by adding our Social Secy, Mr. Okundaye to the mist, Mr. Okundaye is now chairing the committee. I am aware that this committee has been working diligently over the Christmas period are ready to present a report to the house today.

ENAW
I received a message from the ENAW chairman on Friday via whatsap that ENAW is being sued, I do not yet have all the details, there is a COP presidents teleconference meeting called for  this week Tue, Feb 7th to discuss the details and next step forward. Once I know more, I will passed it on.
With regards to our preparation for the 2018 hosting, I am aware that some of us are nervous about the level of our preparation, let me assure you that work has been done and continue behind the scene, I can tell you that the hotel has been secured, and the contract signed. Allow me to first acknowledged the hard work of the former president, Mr. Festus Ehiozonwangie who work tireless in ensuring our successful bidding, I have met with our three collaborative co-hosting partner’s clubs, the most recent meeting was last night. We have planned a multi-literal meeting for all the co-hosting clubs for March 25th for strategy planning, to form the working subcommittees and zone out the division of labor. So far, we have identified the following committees, Guests, Finance, Sponsorship, Advert & Publicity, Security, Food & Entertainment, &Transportation. I will present to this house for your approval our five members which this executives feel can best represent our interest in the subcommittee planning level. They are: Mr. Ehionzomwangie, Mr. Omoruna, Mr. Okundaye, Mr. Otobo, and Irowa. As we go deeper into the planning, should there be need to add more members, we will do so.

Website / Logo
In light of the 26th Anniversary and Enaw hosting, there is no better time than now to put forward an image that is befitting us, one that will market us to the world without we having to do the verbal narrative, that is why I have taken serious steps from day one of this admin to look at our image through the lenses of our website. In collaboration with the former president, the VP, the PRO, we have contracted our website to a professional web designer who is currently working on the website. This past week, the PRO and I met with the person to signed the contract. I am happy to inform you that the PRO will unveil to you the 1st phase of our new website. Amongst the many features that we are going to have in the website is Paypal, business advert, links to other organization, clubs, community and external resources, this we believe will boost the traffic and increase the number of people that come to our website. We will also have the ability to have a live screen worldwide during our upcoming events. The PRO will talk more about this later when he unveil the 1str phase of the new website

Logo
We have also contracted a professional graphics artist to design our logo. This will be ready in a week time.

Charitable #
My goal is to get our charitable status before the end of this year, if we are to entice cooperate and individual donors for financial support, we must do everything in our disposal to acquire our charitable statues. Thankfully, we have succeeded in changing our cooperation name to reflect who we are. Three weeks ago, I met with a chartered accountant, to discuss how we can get our charitable number. The treasure and I also had a meeting with someone yesterday who is also versatile in charitable status application. We will present to this house these two options in details, for the collective decision.

Foundation
I am committed to revamping our philanthropy mindset, this is what we were known for, I am of the firm believe that we can achieve this through our foundation. Through our foundation, we can once again extend our hand of caring to the people in Edo state, by assisting the underprivileged to pay their hospital bill ranging from 0 – 100,000 Naria with media publicity
I have done an extensive research to know that under a foundation umbrella, we can source for Canadian govt found to assist in our philanthropy projects both here and in Nigeria, one of the project we can embark on here is Back to School Drive for Edo indigenes children, we can collaborate with the Edo Language & Culture class, or we can go solo. Within the next three months, I will introduce a bill and indulge house to set up a committee to look into the feasibility of this project

Member’s Drive
This admin will strategically work to encourage new members, of course members that will bring values, quality and add virtuous to this club. We have reached a stage where we will no longer be posturing to sentiment in accepting every applications that comes to us, we should be able to remove sentiment and put the club’s interest first. We should concerns ourselves with the future and the kind of legacy we are going to pass on, all applications should and must be given the utmost vetting. We should look at people not because we are friends to them rather, we should look at what the club should gain from the potential applicatns before accepting them into the club. We must put emphases recruiting members who are professionals in various spheres of the professional word

Business  / Investment Committee
This committee is currently playing a vital role, and will continue to be in the foreseeable future, for now, to avoid any disruption; this committee shall remain in place to continue working. From time to time, if there is need to alter the make-up, with your counsel, we will make such changes or tweak the committee to meet the presenting challenges when the need arise. Later on, I will be asking the chair, Mr. Imalele to brief the house.

My vision is to see that this club venture on a viable business that will outlive us, am open to all suggestions and ideas, I welcome all input on how we can actualize this vision.

MOU: Recently, I met with a lawyer to discuss having MOU for our business venture. I was advised by two layers to have a Resolution in the house to mandate the executives to draft a legal MOU that will bind All Members, or have Amendment to our constitution to reflect a binding MOU for any future business venture undertaking by the club & the current existing members at the time , this is to eschew any legal triangle and to protected the club and the members.

Edo United Network Canada wide
This network was born out of this organization, fair to say that this network is a Unic club baby, we need to continue to nurture it with our presence and counsel. I am proud to say that my club started it, I will even be more prouder if one day this network become a multi facet organization that attracts Edo indigence from not only across Canada, but around the world. I have had few meetings with the other parties in the network. We have set Sat July 22 for this year BBQ. I have advocated to the network to bring the focus back to our children, as this was one of the main reason the network was formed, to have our children network with all Edo indigenes around the world. I am of the firm opinion like Mr. Okhomina here that we should gradually let the children take over, while we take a back seat.

In my one on one meetings with some of you, I was enriched with some very laudable ideas that I think will outlives us for years to come, one of the idea is to have an Edo umbrella organization here in Canada, much like the ENAW in the US. Truth be said, this was not the first time I was told about the idea, in the last couple weeks, I have mulled over this idea, I am convinced to my spine core that this is doable. I have proposed this vision to the network presidents, as a five years plan, I am happy to tell you that it was well received by all the attendees in that gathering. All the parties agreed to think about the idea, it is my hope that the people at the network table will start the master plan in earnest.

Patrons / Patroness
Patrons generally refers to well known or illustrious individuals who lend their name and support to clubs or organization, they are normally well-known and respected. Part of their role is to help lend credibility to the organization they represent, through kind, network, and media publicity. Gentlemen, even though we currently have ?? patron and patroness, the question I ask you to mull over is, does our current patrons and patroness fit the aforementioned descriptions, with the exception of Mr. Omoregievia

It is not the number that count, but the equality, my plan is to take a hard look at our patrons and patroness, I believe the time has come for us to take a critical look at them, to no fault of theirs; perhaps we have willfully failed to properly utilize them to our advantage. To that end, I proposed to you that we revisit this again in fall, given us enough time to do our most pressing housekeeping, such as web design, Logo, Charitable status, Foundation, with a clear concise and concrete business plan venture, that we can use as leverage in engaging them.

External
This administration will work to form cordial relationship with other local clubs and organization to foster unity and collaboration
God Bless Unic Club
God Bless Edo State, our native
God Bless Canada, our Adopted Land
Oba gha to kpere. Ise!

By Emma Aigbedion
President Unic Club
2017 Presidential State of union, vision & agenda speech
Feb 5th, 2017