46th Annual Convention
Hasbrouk Heights, NJ July 2-4 1999,

Our 46th annual convention, which took place in Hasbrouk Heights, New Jersey on July 2nd, 3rd, and 4th was a great success.

The organizing committee welcomed us on Friday night with enough lalagithes, vleeta and scorthalia to satisfy everyone. Furthermore, the local restaurateurs offered a variety of other foods and pastries; it was enough to feed an army! We enjoyed our annual slideshow, featuring slides of previous conventions and of our hometown. Our fellow Krokeati Potis Katsetos presented his second musical album, a superb work of original settings of the poetry of Greek-American poets and of the late Papa Dimitri Christakos of Hania, Tarapsa.

Early Saturday afternoon, as the greater New York area was scorched by record high temperatures, we enjoyed a wonderful lunch cruising aboard a splendid air-conditioned cruise boat. The boat traveled around Manhattan, to the Statue of Liberty, and to Ellis Island.

The General Assembly meeting took place later Saturday afternoon. The awarding of educational scholarships was discussed at great length. It was decided that future candidates for the awards need to have been members of the society for the previous three years. We also discussed ways to attract our youth to our conventions; a committee was formed to find ways to communicate with the youth via the internet. The committee consists of Paraskeva and Eleni Anastasakis of Watertown, CT and Peter Theodorakos of Palisades Park, NJ. Our web page received great praise from the convention participants. The web page budget was increased, in hopes that further development will make it a valuable communication link for our youth. We decided that the 47th annual convention will take place in our hometown in late July and Early August of 2000; more information to follow. The last order of business on the meeting agenda was the election of new officers. The results of the election are as follows: George Theodorakos (Palisades Park, NJ), president, George Lintzeris (Baltimore, MD), first vice-president, Nick Lentzeres (New York, NY), second vice-president, Dimitri Katsetos, (Rochester, NY), secretary, and Bill Theodorakos, (Palisades Park, NJ), treasurer.

Later Saturday night, we enjoyed a delicious buffet dinner (perhaps the best we've ever had), and a superb demonstration of traditional Greek dances performed by a local church youth group; two of our own youth, the granddaughters of John Poulakos, are members of this group. We danced to the music of an excellent local Greek band until the early hours of the morning.

Sunday started off with a picnic under a huge canopy of cypress trees at a nearby park. We enjoyed great food, games, and, most of all, eachother's company. In charge of the grill was Dimitri Moutafis, our adopted friend from the island of Chios, who had brought along a bottle of homemade tsipouro; he offered a taste to everyone. Later that evening, we continued the glenti in the Great Hall on the twelfth floor of the hotel overlooking the New York City skyline and the Fourth of July fireworks bursting all around us.

The 46th annual convention will remain unforgettable. Those of you who could not participate truly missed out. We like to thank the organizing committee and we greatly appreciate the efforts . Peter and Bill Theodorakos, chairmen, George and Alexandra Theodorakos, John and Roula Merianos, Peter and Barbara Panteleakis, and Diamanto Goranitis, visiting from our hometown.


Krokeai Society, USA & Canada  - Σύλλογος Κροκεατών Αμερικής Καναδά