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NUGAS wrangling over future direction

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1 Jun 2009
Alexandros Logothetis

The National Union of Greek Australian Students (NUGAS) appears to be in turmoil as a leaked document received by Neos Kosmos English Edition (NKEE) exposes issues of competency and direction.

A NUGAS media report dated May 17 was sent by the NUGAS National Media Officer, James Calligeros, to the rest of the National Committee members. In it Mr Calligeros accuses the entire committee of not effectively performing it’s duties.

Amongst other things Mr Calligeros accuses the committee of being “dysfunctional.”

In his report Mr Calligeros damns members of the committee for ineptitude, saying that, “No one appears to have the ability to complete their roles... we have a president who cannot lead, a secretary who can’t manage to email the minutes from a meeting to the committee, a liaison officer who can’t liaise with her own state, a treasurer who cannot fill a treasury, a convention officer who did not organize a convention, both a media and deputy-media officer, who together have been unable to produce a magazine, a webmaster who has barely updated the website, a policy officer whose greatest work for the year was a policy on tsiftetelia, an education officer who is likely unaware of the UNSW Greek department situation, and to my knowledge has taken no action regarding it, etc...”

When NKEE contacted the NUGAS President, Elinah Ioannides, she refused to make any comment, other than to stress that “the matter has been resolved.”

Mr Calligeros also declined NKEE’s request for a comment, insisting that his comments “should not be taken out of context.”

The Chairperson of the Youth Committee of the Greek Orthodox Community of Sydney and NSW, Makis Danalis, defended NUGAS’s role on the issue of the Greek Department of the University of NSW.

He clarified that he had contacted the NUGAS National President, Ms Ioannides, who was supportive and agreed to inform NUGAS’s members about the issue and to take action on the matter.

NUGAS members who talked to NKEE on the condition of anonymity revealed that a power struggle within the organisation is at play with certain members wanting to shift the focus of NUGAS “from tsiftetelia and booze cruises to more meaningful contributions.”

However, it is unclear if Mr Calligeros represents this group, or is driven by other motivations.

NKEE offered the opportunity to Ms Ioannides to provide us with information on NUGAS’ actions and activities for the past year and plans for the future, but no response has been received.

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Comments

I refer to the article written by Mr Logothetis dated 1st of June 2009, I must say this is poor journalism on the part of Mr Logothetis to simply "cut, copy and paste" and internal document from a committee meeting and call it news. The article also smells awash with “tall poppy syndrome” attempting to pull Australia’s peak Greek student body down.

I have found that people that work closely in teams (NUGAS committees included) are often the most critical of their own work. This stems from a passion to improve and push the boundaries and sometimes to "call out" poor behaviour in striving to better oneself or team.

NUGAS since its inception has been criticised for only promoting social activities. Often by those who have never been involved and have only made comment from afar.
I can say first hand that this criticism is partially true. NUGAS does a lot of social activities (that is how they raise money) – and often been the driving force in co-ordinating and organizing fundamental shifts in Greek-Australian life; for example NUGAS members started Neos Kosmos English Weekly, NUGAS members were instrumental in co-ordinating the Macedonian rallies, and more recently NUGAS members were instrumental in pushing Modern Greek back into Monash University. I could name many more – but I hope you get my drift. These positive points are too quickly forgotten and often not recogised by our own community. Maybe you could take a leaf out of the AGE newspaper that was quick to recognize the Monash Greek club (an integral part of NUGAS) for their efforts.

It is easy to criticize from afar, Mr Logothetis, especially with your wealth of experience in the workplace. Please understand that you are dealing with young adults still maturing and growing their skills. These kids (NUGAS Committee members) should be applauded for giving a damn about Hellenism in our society. If every Greek Australian cared half as much as these kids do – our cultural heritage would benefit from it.

I recommend that you go to a NUGAS meeting, Mr Logothetis and I am sure that your attitude would change. In the future, maybe you could go to greater lengths to confirm your sources (that is what good journalists do) and potentially write something original – instead of the quick “cut, copy and paste”.

These comments are written in sympathy for every committee member serving on a council in the enhancement of Hellenic culture in Australia. NUGAS is improving and will continue to so – I for one am proud of past efforts by the Union. NUGAS should use Mr Logothetis article to push you on to continue improving.

Sasha Pete
NUGAS Life Member
Melbourne Australia

Submitted by Sasha Pete on Tue, 2009-06-16 15:27.

Nugas is the most organised, best established and most active of all the Greek Youth organisations. It will survive these attempts at sabotage, regardless of the efforts of opportunists such as the individual who leaked this email, and the other individual of questionable motive who wrote it. Their support for NUGAS is questionable. They are of a class of people within Sydney, linked to organisations which have always opposed NUGAS. One might ask, if they are really interested in the organisation, why they would leak such an email to the media, disseminating information which is not only false, but slanderous.

Also, as a member of NUGAS nsw (which is currently not functional) it is unconstitutional for them to be on the NUGAS national committee. People who obviously oppose an organisation, and who go to such lengths as leaking emails to the media to defame it, should resign. The national NUGAS committee should take immediate steps in light of this situation, to review its committee and ensure that only those members who are conforming with the constitutional requirements can be part of their committee. This means at the very least, removing NUGAS NSW people from the national committee, until such time as NUGAS NSW is functional following an agm and the election of a new committee.

In light of the SAE Victoria situation, NUGAS should make an example to the Greek Community that it will not allow damaging emails to be leaked from its committee. It should take a strong stance against the use of email to defame its committee and attack nugas members. The person in question should resign for the damage they have caused to the organisation, for the false claims they have made against the committee and finally, because it is unconstitutional for them to be part of the committee, they should voluntarily stand down - it is not proper of them to remain upon the committee in such circumstances.

Submitted by Username on Tue, 2009-06-02 13:41.

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