INGA ASSOCIATION NEWSLETTER Spring 2006, Volume 1

Spring 2006 NEWSLETTER.pdf

INTRODUCTION – PRESIDENT’S MESSAGE

It is with great privilege to serve as 2006 President of the INGA Association. This volunteer community service is far more than just an honor. It represents a call and determination to promote and raise awareness of our cultural in the American society and to provide you with services and a sense of community as an extended family.

On behalf of the Board of Directors, Regional Council members, and the many other volunteers responsible for various community projects, I convey our pledge to do our best to provide value for your INGA Association membership.

INGA Association has noble community missions that are worthy to support and promote. It is our sincere desire to see the organization succeeding in pursuing its missions and goals by building our reputation as an effective community organization that has a direct and positive impact on its community members.

Your personal involvement is a critical success factor. The leadership team is very committed to seeing the organization flourish, but we cannot be successful without YOU. To that end, we need you to:

9 Participate in the community events and get involved.

9 Inspire others to participate and pay their community dues.

9 Be willing to volunteer to do your community services by serving on local or leadership team one day.

We welcome any suggestions or ideas you might have on how we can improve or better promote our community. Please do not hesitate to contact us at ingaleadership@yahoogroups.com

God Bless You.

Delphin B. Kyubwa president@ingaassociation.org

COMMUNITY NEW DIRECTION!

We are pleased that you are taking this time from your busy life style to read our first quarterly community newsletter and would like to let you know that we are very encouraged and inspired by the tremendous efforts and participation of all members of our community. Our community association went into high gear these first three months of 2006. We processed the paperwork required to update the California Secretary of State Corporation records as well as sending needed paperwork to Internal Revenue Service for IRS Tax Exemption status 501(c)(3).

Despite scant resources, our community is using the Internet as a tool for improving communication and the flow of information among its members. INGA Leadership has established an e-mail distribution list where a message can be broadcasted to all its members in a single mouse point and click via inganews@yahoogroups.com. To ensure that our members are not overwhelmed with all kind of emails, messages are filtered and only those deem acceptable by the General Secretary are sent to IngaNews. The board of directors has its own group account

(ingaleadership@yahoogroups.com) for conducting community business as a team.

Although our Association is run by volunteer members of board of directors, everyone in the community is welcome to actively participate in helping shape the direction of the community business. The leadership team is actively involved in encouraging all community members’ participation and seeking technical advice from people in their area of professional expertise. We believe that the more people participate, the greater the influence we can potentially affect to raise the awareness of the Congolese culture in American society. We all share the common goal of promoting and supporting our community through ACTIONS that provide community value to our members. Les paroles s’envolent, mais les actes restent”

The leadership team including regional council members is working very hard to encourage maximum community participation and support through various community activities and events. Please be patient while we transition the organization to the new direction’s focus. We will keep you informed of our progress through the quarterly community newsletter.

THIS YEAR’S FOCUS

This year, INGA Leadership will focus on three top organizational priorities:

1)    Re-energize the organization

2)    Improve communication

3)    Provide value to our community members

To achieve these priorities, several initiatives are underway, a few of which are highlighted below. You can expect to hear more about these efforts in the near future.

·    We are now online at http://wwww.ingaassociation.org. Having a community website will help us get the attention needed as an organization and possibly get corporation support for some community activities. We can accept any type of donation on our website through partnership with the world leader online secure transaction company “PayPal.com”

·    Members have shared their difficulty in understanding the vision and goals of the INGA Association, how it can help them, and why they should support the association. To address those legitimate concerns, the leadership team has decided to take several steps to ensure all that INGA Association can provide them with value and benefit of any organized community. A general assembly meeting was called on February 18, 2006 in Oakland where the Board of Directors helped the audience understand why they need to support the community.

·    We will continue our quarterly newsletter as a way to improve communication by bringing information to you. If you have something you would like to share in our quarterly community newsletter, please send your articles to ingaleadership@yahoogroups.com. All submissions are subject to leadership review and editing.

ADDITIONS IN THE COMMUNITY

We are a very fast growing community in California. In the last quarter, we had 5 newborn babies in the community. Congratulations to the following families: Shakadi & Kwetambo; Judith & Calver Balumbu; Consolate & Claude Bisimwa; Solange Bisimwa & Oragon Onganya; Noela Mbumba. INGA Association was also pleased to welcome Sylvain Mbumba’s family of 8 children that moved into our community from Kinshasa. Our community email distribution list (inganews@yahoogroups.com) is also growing on a daily basis. Currently, we have more than 150 community member subscribers. If you know of someone who is not yet receiving community news via email, we will be more than happy to add that person on the list by sending us an email at ingaleadership@yahoogroups.com

COMMUNITY SUCCESS STORIES: CONGRATULATIONS

We have some success stories and big congratulations to the San Jose, Watsonville, Salinas & Fremont areas team, which made a total contribution of $425 in the last quarter. Makuba Sekombo (local Treasurer) and Davin Nganga (Communication Coordinator) lead the San Jose regional team. Congratulations guys, keep up the good work! A Semi-Annual detail report of all financial activities will be sent to all contributing members in July. For the purpose of this newsletter, we would like to highlight the following quarterly milestone fundraisings.