The ticket of the current President of the Greek Orthodox Community of New South Wales Harry Danalis was endorsed overwhelmingly in the Board elections that took place last Sunday.
Mr Danalis’ ticket won 66 percent of the vote and had all twenty board members elected, nine of which join the Greek community’s Board for the very first time. On the whole, membership turn-out and participation was high, with 1854 votes out of a membership of 2590 entitled to take part in the electoral process. Proxies accounted for 1430 votes, while 23 per cent opted to vote in person.
The result came as no surprise, given the fact that the winning Danalis’ ticket was estimated to have submitted the majority of proxy votes registered.
The newly elected Board met on Wednesday in order to elect its new Executive – Mr Danalis was re-elected as President, Ms Nia Karteris- Vice President and Chair of the Sydney Greek Festival, Mr Michael Tsilimos – Secretary, Mr Chris Gravaris – Assistant Secretary, Mr Chris Belerhas – Treasurer, Mr Nick Malaxos- Assistant Treasurer and Mr Chris Georgopoulos was given the position of representing the Greek Orthodox Community of N.S.W. at the Federation of the Greek Orthodox Communities of Australia.
Financial distress is one of the key issues the new Board Executive has promised to resolve. The current belt-tightening period for the Community comes after last year’s deficit of $300,000 had almost doubled this year. Other priorities for the new Board are the creation of a Child Care facility, the expansion of the Home for the Aged with an additional dementia wing, the utilisation of the Lakemba premises and the estoration of their Paddington building.
The new Executive is believed to be less affiliated to political parties than at any other time, during the last few decades. The coordinators of the various GOC of NSW committee, shall be elected within the next few days.