President's Message: NetSAP's Vision for 2007

Greetings fellow NetSAP-Boston Members and Patrons!

On behalf of the 2007 Executive Board of the Network of South Asian Professionals, Boston Chapter, I'd like to wish you and your family best wishes for health and happiness in the New Year. After the overwhelming success of our programming activities from 2006, we enter 2007 with exciting opportunities and increased expectations from you. I’d like to take this opportunity to highlight our success in the past year and outline our vision for 2007.

Over the last two years NetSAP-Boston has grown tremendously. This growth is attributed to several factors, most significantly your unconditional support and patronage for the organization. Last year we raised the quality of our events by hosting them at elegant venues, streamlining registrations through online signup, and collaborating with other organizations to bring events of wide variety. Our events ranged from the popular monthly networking mixers (Happy Hours) and social galas, to professional development events, to theatrics and cultural events, and last but not the least community awareness and volunteering opportunities. Through all these initiatives we fostered and built lasting relationships between people from different backgrounds.

We started 2007 on a great note. Thanks to your generous contributions, we raised over $600 for cancer patients at our first Happy Hour hosted at Met Lounge, Tonic. Most of our monthly Happy Hours in 07 will have a theme or a cause associated with them. Look forward to exciting cultural events such as Holi in March, one-on-one networking events such as wine n greet, harbor cruise in summer, theatric workshops and plays, and community volunteering opportunities. Additionally, NetSAP professional chairs are planning new seminars for career development and mentoring. You will also probably see several bi-monthly socio-cultural get-togethers for book reviews, movie reviews and discussions on current affairs.

In our efforts to raise the quality of our events and provide you with the best experience, we will face significant increase in our expenses. However, we are in the process of seeking sponsorships to offset this expense which will result in lower registration fees and heavy discounts for our members. Therefore, I encourage you to sign up for membership and assure you that we will strive to provide lasting value for the cost. Through your annual NetSAP/NetIP membership, you will also enjoy a wide range of benefits and discounts at events organized by over fifteen of our alliance partner organizations in the greater Boston area.

My team is very excited, motivated and is working towards finalizing the list of events for 2007. While we are in that process, we will try our best to keep you informed through our website and blog. We also welcome your ideas and constructive feedback so that we can improve NetSAP and serve you better. As you know, we are an organization built by a team of passionate volunteers who dedicate their time, energy and patience to achieve our vision. I invite our members and patrons to play an active role in our organization. If you are interested in making a difference in our community and honing your leadership skills, join our board or volunteer for events of your interest. Please feel free to contact me or other Board members with any questions or suggestions you may have.

As a duly registered non-profit organization in the State of Massachusetts, we would like to continue our mission of reaching out to the South Asian community and empowering as many individuals as possible in the New England region.

My team and I look forward to seeing you at a future NetSAP event in the greater Boston Area!

Sincerely,
Tushneem Dharmagadda
President, NetSAP-Boston