ATS Resolution Communication

Dear Austin Tamil Community,

We have some exciting news to share with you. But first some background:

Austin Tamil Sangam (ATS) was founded in 1991 with a core mission to promote interaction of Tamil community living in Austin and Central Texas, uphold its values and culture and to promote the awareness of the breadth, depth and richness of various Tamil Literature. It was established 27 years ago to serve the community.

There was a difference of opinion within the leadership team of ATS in 2018 and the Transition team was formed for a smooth transition to next-generation ATS leadership team. However, due to unfortunate events, the transition could not be completed as expected.

All of the officers nominated by the transition team came to mediation assisted by Mr. Sam Kumar and have agreed on a final framework for ATS for 2019 and beyond. Here we have to thank the Transition team members for their work since their work established the framework for the nominations.

We would like to announce that difference of opinions have been resolved and the mediation was a success

The final outcome of the mediation is as follows:

• 10 new officers (listed below) are appointed to serve as ATS Board of Directors (Five Positions) and Executive committee members (Five positions).
• There are 6 nominations for the Board of Director positions.

• Balaji Krishnan
• Ganesh Venkatesan
• Praveen Bhattar
• Sakthivel Sabapathy
• Shanmugasundaram
• “Vasu” S. Vasudevan

 

 

However, since there are only 5 available Board positions an election will be conducted to select 5 Board of Directors from the 6 nominations; The election will be held on November 10^th, 2018. In good faith and to foster goodwill, the non-elected member will serve as the Joint Secretary with the below Executive committee members

 

• The Officers who submitted their nominations and selected for the Executive committee are as follows
  • President         – Hari Iyer
  • Vice President – Chidambaram Vairavan
  • Secretary         – Karthikeyan Annapillai
  • Treasurer         – Rajagopal Karingaroyanpalayam Chidambaram
  • Joint Secretary – An officer from the nominated Board of directors (TBD after the elections)

• In addition to this year’s election, the new officers agreed to amend the Bylaw by May 2019 and conduct an election to select the 2020 ATS officers. Any Contested position shall be decided by an election.
• The new officers will serve in the ATS Board and Executive committee until the next ATS leadership team is elected for the 2020 tenure.

The election committee for the November 10^th election will be formed with the following members

1. Sam Kumar (oversight)
2. Kumar Muthuraman
3. Rajendran Panda

The nominations for this year (term ending in Dec 2019) is restricted to all the members appointed by the Transition Team and the Board of Directors. However, going forward (Dec 2019) the nominations will be open for the entire Tamil community subject to then bylaws in effect.

Voting Registration will begin from Oct 27^th and continue until Nov 4^th ,2018. All of the members as of December 2017 and additional members as of March 2018 will be automatically eligible to vote. All other supporters of ATS have to register themselves to vote. Each household at Austin Metro Area will get one vote.

The candidate’s profile and the election ballot will be communicated in our next email.

The United ATS Team sincerely thanks Mr. Ashokkumar Subramanian, Mr. Ganesan Elangovan, Mr. Kaliaperumal Arumugam, Mr. Mohan Karuppusamy, Mr. Sunder Ponnurangam, and Mr. Thilip Kumar Thakku for their willingness to step aside for the formation of a new team. Their exhibition of extreme good will to unite the Tamil community is to be commended.

We have confidence that the New group of Officers will render selfless services to the betterment of Tamizh Community in Austin and put forth their best efforts to evolve ATS to the next level. Their success depends on the community support and active participation and we kindly request all the community members to extend your unconditional support to ATS and the current group of officers.

Vaazhga Tamizh Valarga Tamizh Makkal

 

Thank you

Sincerely

United ATS Team

All of the transition team nominated officers and the current officers selected and nominated for the Board and the Executive committee positions.