A Message from the President – July 2016
Dear friends,
Every year this season, we bid all our beloved students farewell for their summer holidays.
Our HCGM “École Socrates-Démosthène” graduates will go on to High school, embarking on a journey where they will meet new challenges and embrace different learning experiences.
Statistics have shown that the “École Socrates-Démosthène” graduates have developed skills that enable them to excel academically, as well as, in their future professional endeavors, in Canada’s multicultural society. These same graduates will be the new guardians of our language, our religion and our culture.
Working with children requires patience, compassion, adoptability and above all, a love for teaching and the desire to see each child reach their full potential. At the HCGM, we are truly blessed to have such teaching staff. The result is 149 proud 2016 graduates to whom I express my sincere congratulations.
I also extend the same gratitude to the teachers and Director of our Supplementary Education for their excellent work in teaching the Greek language to our students on Saturdays.
In a spirit of gratitude and duty toward faithful Christians who participate in the Sacraments and the Liturgies at the HCGM churches, we have designed a system to provide receipts for those wishing to offer donations to our churches. We believe that this effort will benefit the faithful churchgoers for tax purposes, as their donations will be recorded. This system uses “Orthodollars”, which are available in denominations of $1, $2, $5, $10 and $20.
We began the summer with two annual festivals organised by the Regional Councils of South Shore and Laval. Both were great successes, where hundreds of people attended and enjoyed authentic Greek experiences, and we thank the Regional Councils and their volunteers for their well-organised and tireless work.
On June 12th, elections were held to designate the members to the HCGM Board of Directors and Regional Councils for the 2016-2019 term. The peoples’ vote gave a new light to our administration, enabling them to continue their work for the benefit of Hellenism in the Greater region of Montreal. I assure you that we will work with sincerity, honesty, consistency and transparency to resolve all pending issues and to accomplish all our goals.
I congratulate the members of the Election Committee for their selfless work on this year’s elections, the candidates who showed interest in participating in the public affairs of our community and all our members that exercised their democratic right by voting for the future of Hellenism in Montreal.
I wish you all a wonderful summer!
Nicholas T. Pagonis
President