President's Corner

Dear friends,

The BLAS activity year is almost coming to and end, and with this also my time as president. A few weeks ago a fantastic new committee was elected, and the way forward was agreed in the AGM. It’s great to see that all the ingredients for future success are in place.

This year was another year of success with growing memberships and loads of appreciation shown from our members.

As my family and I are leaving Asia, I’m preparing for multiple farewell letters and speeches. And I guess you already know me a bit, I like to do some internet research for interesting and/or relevant examples. High on the Google search result of famous farewell speeches came Richard Nixon’s farewell speech to the White House Staff when he had to quit as president.

He talked about the White House and why it was special. Comparing this house with many other official buildings in the world, he mentioned that the White House was not the nicest one, nor the biggest one, it did not contain as fine art as many others, nor did it have the great history of many others, however what made it different was that it had a big heart. And that big heart came from the people that served there.

Guess some of this is very comparable with our BLAS association. We’re not biggest, nor have the biggest resources, nor have a nice facility centre etc etc, but oh boy, is this team having a big heart.

I also found a film fragment of the farewell speech of KLSK Londerzeel’s soccer trainer (2007), and although I couldn’t understand everything the guy said, there was one word which I also used during my AGM farewell speech which amplifies the ‘big heart’ statement. This word is ‘unique’; he mentioned he had a unique team and a unique atmosphere. I indeed believe the atmosphere, the comradery, the passion and the energy for noble causes in our organization is unique – I called it ‘Uniquely Blas in Uniquely Singapore’.

What also makes me proud is that other associations in Singapore or in other countries do show some jealousy on the good functioning of our team. In the AGM and committee dinner I shared what I believe some of the ingredients were for this winning formula : I believe that the nice features of our host country help a lot (like being small and having a nice climate) ; also the good relationship with our embassy helps ; it also helps that our team is not too big ; but most important it’s the people that make it unique.

We have a unique team of committee and subcommittee members who show a high professionalism, passion, dedication and energy, which combined with the help of many contributing members, delivers fireworks.

So to conclude, it has been a privilege to lead this unique organization in this unique country for the past two years. It has been a privilege to work with such a fantastic group of people and I would like to thank all of you who have contributed to that success. It has been a privilege to enjoy and participate in so many BLAS events.

Let me end by whishing Peter, his new team, and all the BLAS and BLBG members a fantastic continuation.

We’ll miss you and your friendship.

Eddy