SOP Supreme President's Message - 9-16-2011

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Brothers and Sisters of the AHEPA Family,

My name is Manolis Eftihios Sfinarolakis, and I am the newly elected Supreme President of the Sons of Pericles. It was a great honor and privilege to attend the wonderful festivities at the 89th Annual Supreme Convention in Miami Beach, Florida, and I wish the best of luck to the outgoing members of the Supreme and Grand lodges of the AHEPA, Daughters of Penelope, Sons of Pericles, and Maids of Athena.

This year’s lodge was elected because of a key characteristic that each member possesses: INITIATIVE. We will be an action-oriented lodge this year that will operate within the framework of our constitution. We will encourage our membership, and the members of the whole AHEPA Family, to not only think about ideas to make our organization stronger, but to ACT on them.

In the spirit of this proactive initiative, the Sons of Pericles and Maids of Athena have acted to choose a joint National Project, the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation International (www.jdrf.org), and the members of the Supreme Lodge are extremely excited to work with the Grand Lodge to raise funding for this worthy cause.

We shall continue our membership initiative, with members who wish to join between the ages of 14-17 years old joining at NO COST, and members 18 years and older paying $40 dues for dual membership in the Sons of Pericles and AHEPA. This new policy alone had a huge impact in the Sons of Pericles tripling its membership from the level of 18 months prior.

We continue to have a man with the utmost integrity and enthusiasm acting as our National Advisor, Chris Economides Jr., who will continue to serve as our role model and trusted advisor. We seek others just like Mr. E. who we hope can serve as advisors at the local chapter level to help our members preserve their Hellenic roots, perform their civic responsibilities, and maintain a level of individual excellence to be admired by all whom they come in contact with.

In closing, the Supreme Lodge and I look forward to having another year filled with expansion. There is a funny thing that happens when the AHEPA family works as a TEAM. Together Everyone Achieves More!

Fraternally,

Manolis Sfinarolakis
Supreme President
Sons of Pericles