Let me begin by wishing each one of you and your families a happy feast of our patron Saint Francis Xavier.

It’s both an honour and privilege for me to stand before you this evening as Chairman of our beloved WCG and I take this opportunity to thank you members and the members of the Managing Committee for electing me to this prestigious office. I am privileged to have a combination of youth, experience and dedicated managing committee members to serve the WCG for this term. To quickly run through our Managing Committee team members: We have our three trustees Deanne Menon, Percival Aguiar and Stanley Lasrado together with Maurice Caeiro as our General Secretary who is assisted by Lorraine Martin and Boris Bothelo as our Treasurer being assisted by Rohin Gracias. We have Joaquim Carvalho and Mervyn Fernandes handling sports and Calvin Pais and Deanne Menezes handling Social, Marie Fernandes handling Housie and Patricia Soans handling memberships. We have Lucian Monteiro handling F&B and Harold Fernandes handling HR. I would like to compliment and thank each one of them for the work they’re doing and assure you that we, together as a team, will strive to enrich your interaction and experience with WCG going forward. It’s an opportune time for me to thank the families of the Managing Committee members for the sacrifices they make to enable the MC members to devote their time to WCG. I also take this opportunity to thank our staff both the office and the union staff, who work tirelessly to ensure our Gymkhana functions smoothly all through the year. A word of appreciation and gratitude to Gymkhana 91, Sports Gurukul and Shuttle Crazee for their continued support and good work. We have a plethora of events happening all through the year but I would like to highlight just two of them today.

The first is the Inter Parish Rink football tournament that’s held on our tennis courts. Its more than just a football tournament to us, its our commitment to building a vibrant and energetic Catholic community amongst our youth, who we believe, are our future. Kudos to our Sports committee for the success this enjoys.

The second one I would like to mention is the Special Children’s Christmas Tree party that we hold every year. I commented to my Committee members that this is the best kept secret in WCG! Here again, it’s not just us fulfilling our social responsibility but it’s our outreach to these children and our Catholic spirit of inclusivity that we are committed to and would like to exemplify. I thank Pierre Dsouza for his commitment to this cause and helping us organize the event. I encourage you members to show your commitment as well, by contributing to this noble cause. A special thanks to the team organizing this event.

I would like to thank Fr DeSales & Decan Jaime Da Fonseca for celebrating the Eucharist this evening. I thank our priests and nuns who are associated with WCG all through the year. Noreen and Nicole Coelho – thanks for doing the altar decor, Raygan Tellis for serving the Mass today and Mimosa & her choir members: thanks for the excellent singing. My thanks goes out to everyone who helped to ensure we have a wonderful celebration this evening.

Before I close I would like to share this with you – we as a Managing committee are committed to a pursuit of excellence. Mediocrity is no longer acceptable & we will take steps, small to begin with, before we leap into the realm of excellence where we firmly believe WCG belongs and we need your support dear members, to achieve that. Let’s work together to make it happen.

Thank you.