Home | Mission | History | About Us | Calendar | Join Us | Newsletter | Links | Contact Us
The Association of Moremi Women (AMW)

An Organization of Yoruba Women in California


Moremi Statue

Association of Moremi Women
New President Remarks by Mrs. Alice Olagunju
January 2008

Dear Moremi Sisters,

Happy New Year. To the Moslems among us; I say Asalamu Alaikum. To the Christians; I say God is good all the time. To the Traditionalist; I say aboru boye , aboye bose. I pray that the Lord Almighty, Aseda aiye will make this year, a year of success and prosperity for every one of us and our entire family members, Amen. It is a new day, and I want to welcome you all to a new beginning of year 2008. It is really a blessing to have witness the end of an era. I pray for God’s guidance and good health as we all work together this year to take this Association of Moremi Women to the next great level.

As one Philosopher once said, “We are twice armed if we fight with faith.” I believe that in unity, we can move a mountain. Our theme for this New Year is “STRESS FREE”. This is the year that we all need to sit back, relax, and get all our worries out of our mind. The time has come when we need to take good care of ourselves and our loved ones. We need to remember the incidents this past year. Reflect over it, and use it as a tool to put our stress level in check. I pray that God will continue to give us the strength to be able to handle all the stressful situations in our lives, Amen.

Year 2007 has being a tragedy and challenging year for our Nigerian Community in Southern California in terms of loosing close friends, and some other circumstances which are far greater beyond our control. As the Lord will have it, and as a Christian soldiers, we were able to keep hope alive and continue to march forward. I must say that it is not easy to plan and execute a big party but we did it. We were able to put together the celebration of our 10TH year anniversary of our great Association “Honoring a decade of service”. At the beginning of it all, it looks like nothing will ever happen but with some great efforts and persistence of our sisters, we were able to demonstrate that there is strength in unity. I thank you all for a job well done.

Duty called and I answered. I thank you all for electing me as your new President. I will like to say; I accept the position of the Presidency of Association of Moremi Women, to provide good leadership to carry on the good work of our previous president. I thank you for your trust in me to take us to the next level as we all work together to get there.

I congratulate my fellow Executive members: Vice President; Dr. Sade Kannike-Martins, Secretary; Chief (Mrs) Fama Adewale Shomadhi, Assistant Secretary; Chief (Mrs) Nike Amudipe, PRO; Mrs. Tayo Abon, Assistant PRO; Mrs. Patricia Amodu-Oseni, Social Secretary; Mrs. Taiwo Fanu, Assistant Social Secretary; Mrs. Toun Famutimi, Treasurer; Mrs. Toyin Ademuyiwa, Financial Secretary; Mrs. Dupe Atanda, and Provost; Mrs. Toyin Oshinuga.

We will continue to update our website, www.moremiwomen.org. We will also bring the calendar of events back to the table whereby we will be able to plan some events ahead of time with some training sessions. We will continue with our health awareness sessions, as we strive to live a healthy and long life.

As we have been discussing from many months on how to get many more Yoruba women involved in our Association and our dream of owning a cultural or recreation center; the time is now. We need to get back to what made us the envies of many women group in Southern California.

Membership Recruitment: Membership recruitment starts with me and you. Our membership is dwindling due to many factors that we are aware of and we struggled to fix. The old English saying is that a tree does not make a forest. Another one is there is power in numbers. The old Yoruba saying is “Agbajo owo la nfi nso aya”. “Ajeji owo kan ko gbe eru de ori.” In short; we have a big venture in front of us and we need all the help we can get from our community. We need to reach out and bring more Yoruba women back to the Association. We don’t need to be over taxing our fewer members for something that will benefit all the Yoruba women and especially the Nigerian Community in Southern California.

How do we go about the membership recruitment depend on us. I will like to propose that every member make a resolution to bring at lease two (2) new or old members back into the Association before the end of the year 2008. I know it is going to be a tough sell, but we can do it.

I will be discussing further with our executive members on how to approach the recruitment efforts without compromising our AMW objectives. One of the areas we the Association need to discuss is granting furlough for past due membership fees to old members who wish to rejoin us without necessarily appearing punitive. How much furlough to grant depends on our collective decision, and we need to make it sooner than later.

Some members suggested that we should encourage our former members who have been gone for so long to just come back and complete a new application without demanding for old dues. If that is what we want, we should encourage them to do so with our collective understanding that we all agree.

Our new membership application fees could be reduced one time only for newer applicant. How much of reduction depends on us.

We should have a membership drive day on our calendar. Where our PRO, Secretary, and Social Secretary will put a program together and invites as many as possible Yoruba women in Southern California.

Association Cultural Center: We are lucky this year that our new Vice-President (Dr. Kannike-Martins) knows something about real estate. The Executives and a search committee will be developing a workable plan on how to buy and secure AMW Center. This plan should be flexible enough to guarantee input from every financial member. This is the time to act. We need to get back to what made us special in the first place. The prices of properties are falling in Southern California. Our Vice President and I will be meeting soon to recommend search committee members name to the house for your approval.

Conclusion: We need a renew energy to move forward. Our community is looking for our leadership and fanfare. We are growing older, our children are getting married, and we are becoming grandmothers in every corner. We need to mobilize our self a little further and show the community that, where we came from (Yoruba Land), is still the best cultural and family driven center of the world.

Food for thought: I will like to leave this with you “The ultimate measure of a man or woman is not where he/she stands in the moment of comfort and convenience, but where he/she stands at the time of challenge and controversy.” Yes we can keep the fire burning.

Thank you all and God’s blessings at all times. Moremi agbe wa o, Ase.

Mrs. Alice M. Olagunju President- 2008 & 2009

 

 

2008

Alice Olagunju
President

 
__________________

 
Patrons
Chief Kannike-Martins
Dr. Bamidele Dada
Dr. Ola Olambiwonnu
 
 
 
Board of Advisory
Mr. Demola Okusanya
Mr. Sola Oniyide
Dr. Joshua Olagunju
Mrs. Kofo Jolaosho-Perry
Dr. Ayo Akingbemi
Mr. Kunle Ogunnaike
Dr. Gabriel Ige
Mr. Ayo Adebowale
Dr. Mustapha Sanusi

 

 
We thank you for
your continued support!

nigerianflag.gif
Nigerian National Flag

2008 Executives

 Alice Olagunju
 President

 Sade Kannike-Martins, PhD
 Vice President

 Fama Adewale Somadhi
 Secretary

 Nike Amudipe
 Asst. Secretary

 Toyin Anjous-Ademuyiwa
 
Treasurer

 Dupe Atanda
 Financial Secretary

 Tayo Abon
 PRO

 Patricia Amodu-Oseni
 Asst. PRO

 Taiwo Fanu
 Social Secretary

 Toun Famutimi
 Asst. Soc. Secretary

 Toyin Oshinuga
 Provost

 

An Organization of Yoruba (Nigerian) Women in California

The Association of Moremi Women
P. O. Box 8192 * Los Angeles * California * 90008