03.01.11
by

February 2011 Report from EWCA Tokyo Chapter

The annual General Meeting of 2011 was held on February 5th at Hotel Grand Palace, and was attended by 30 members and 4 guests. The guests were Mr. Nick Barker, from the East West Center’s Asia Pacific Leadership Progrmam, currently visiting the University of Tsukuba (Tokyo Satellite Office).  Ms. Madoka Shimote from the American Embassy, and Blain Keller from the East West Center.

february 2011 ewca tokyo chapter

Members of the EWCA Tokyo Chapter during their annual General Meeting on February 5, 2011.

The annual meeting was presided by Yutaka Harada (OG, 78). After the regular business of approval of the statement of account (by Michiko Yamashita (TDI/RSI, 76) and activity report (by President Takashi “Taka” Tsuchiya (CLI, 77)) for 2010, we proceeded to the election of new president. The general expectation was that the then-president Tsuchiya would be able to continue to serve as president, but unfortunately he was not able to run again because of his new assignment in Australia starting in April.  Shigeo Tonoike (CLI, 73-76, 78-79) was elected president to take his place. The budget and activity plan for 2011 were announced (by Yamasita and Tonoike, respectively) and were duly approved. The meeting also approved the nomination of a new auditor Mr. Junichi Umeda (Jefferson fellow, 82), to replace Mitsuo Kato (CI, 78), who has agreed to be on the board of directors.

After the regular housekeeping business was over, we had a special lecture by Kazuhiko Takemoto (RSI, 78) titled “The World Trends Towards the Solution of the Problem of Climate Change”.

Then the reception followed.  Nomi Tonooka (ICC, 84) acted as master of ceremonies and we started with the toast proposed by Takao Otsuka (TDI, 70), who is the president of Hotel Grand Palace and made a very special arrangement for this meeting. Then a number of special guests were introduced and asked to say a few words. And all the attendees were introduced and recognized. (Unfortunately we didn’t have time for each attendee to tell their story.) At the very end we all sang Aloha Oe and had a group picture taken (see the attachement).

Links: