Monrovia – The President-elect of the African Methodist University Alumni Association says his leadership is determined to increase the number of active members of the association by embarking on programs that are project-oriented.
Emmanuel Tieh Delamy said his leadership will first embark on reviewing its constitution and begin a scholarship fund drive to help “less fortunate students” get through the university.
“School is already in session and there is lot of students in dire need of help and the Louis C. York Endowment Fund is dormant so we want to reawaken that fund drive to be able to help,” he said, adding that it will be the association biggest project for its medium term plans.
He has also promised to launch of a telegram platform that will set stage for alumni to chat and exchanges views about moving the association forward.
He disclosed that the alumni association is also preparing to develop its own website.
Delamy, who was recently elected in a heavily contested election, said the new leadership has been holding consultation with United States based chapter of the association in order to move their Alma Mater forward.
“Some of the past challenges have just been some of the things we are trying to address in the short term which include the lack of information sharing with members about the association’s activities,” he said, while assuring that the telegram program will help mitigate the problem by bringing members from across the world together.
He is also worried about the numerous social media groups that he said tend to confuse the flow of information to members. He called for a single platform that will serve as the hub for information sharing to all members.
“That’s why we are also going for a telegram which will be a fast medium to get information to the association.
“What we’ve been doing is to reach out and I have been having a lot of media engagements and we have just developed the data base for people to register and share the online platform for people to know what’s happening.”
He said at least 50 alumni register on a daily basis to the new data base, and is hping to attract the USA chapter to form part of the process.
Delamy, who will be inducted on October 18, is opting to engage the school administration and the board in the coming months in order to discuss the plans of his leadership.
“We want to do institutional structure and we want to legalize the association – these are things we want to ensure they are done,” he said.
“We already know that the current economic challenge in the country is a problem to people raising funds, and one of the ways we can be affective is for people to contribute dues… we will also start to sell our products – we can brand our tea mugs, pens, caps, t-shirts and have a nice alumni showroom on campus where people can purchase these things and it will raise funds for the association.”
Commenting about his leadership being transparent and accountable, the AMEU Alumni president said a quarterly report will be released to the body to keep them abreast of plans and progress.
“When people are accountable and showing must is entrusted to them, then people will have trust in the system and hey will contribute more,” he asserted.
Delamy, who has a profound experience in project management by working with several public and international institutions and current works with the World Bank as financial management specialist, is optimistic about leading the association to becoming “a more project or program” oriented body that will generate its own income and make progress.
“When the association is run as a program, people will measure us by the indicators we will set and say these are the deliverables and achievements for all the various programs and when we write our report and send to the body they will see the progress of the association – where were we when we started and how many people have benefited from our projects,” he explained.