UNA-USA San Francisco Chapter Update – Winter 2010

Notes from the President, by Susan J. Zipp

During 2009 UNA-San Francisco partnered with Bay Area UNAs to welcome our new UNA-USA president, Ambassador Tom Miller to Northern California. He returned again in September to commemorate the UN International Day of Peace and outline exciting goals for the future. We are delighted to work together toward strengthening the United Nations and will continue to bring quality cultural and educational programs for peace to our community.

We welcomed 5 new members to our Board of Directors, said "Farewell" to past president Kim Weichel as her family relocated to Washington DC, and a sad "Goodbye" to Nancy Peterson who passed away unexpectedly.

The Young Professionals International Cooperation (YPIC) hosted Dr. George Assaf, UN Vienna, with the assistance of Hossein Kamali and Ted Anderson, and Lawrence Wong invited Brazilian Consul General Maurico E. Cortes Costa to an YPIC After Hours program. We established a new Women's Committee and supported co-chairs Bronwyn Galloway and Sonia Gaemi with leadership training to promote the UN CEDAW initiative.

Our October 24th UN Day Program was hosted by the SGI-USA with Distinguished Speaker Dr. Ervin Laszlo. Over 200 people attended, and representatives from our Young Professionals had the unique opportunity to meet for dialogue personally with Dr. Laszlo prior to his public address. On December 10th we commemorate the 61st anniversary of the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights with a year-end celebration, and warmly welcome 2010, when we will honor the 65th anniversary of the UN Charter signing.

Our upgraded website features articles on the UN, global issues and dialogues, and will soon be the new site for the Courier On-Line Newsletter. Please let us know if you are unable to access the Internet and we’ll be sure to continue mailing the Courier directly to you. You can contact us by calling 415-674-9701, via email at info@una-sf.org, or visiting http://www.una-sf.org.

WARM WISHES FOR A HAPPY NEW YEAR FROM UNA-USA SF!