One spirited Greek-Australian went on a four-year mission that he put on himself: discover and document all the Greek organisations of NSW into a single database for everyone to access.
Costa Dantos, an active 25-year-old member of our community, has created a list of all the Greek associations in NSW and published it onto a website.
Mr Dantos started this side project of his four years ago, roughly two years after he started joining the committees of various groups.
Currently, he serves as president of the Brotherhood of Chalkidiki “Aristotelis” of NSW, secretary of the Pan-Macedonian Association, secretary of the Pan-Thessalian Federation “Karaiskakis”, and public relations officer of the committee of the Macedonian Brotherhood of Newcastle “Pavlos Melas”.
“Until around 2 years ago, my list only featured Greek regional associations, in other words associations in NSW focused on people from different parts of Greece, Cyprus or Greeks from other countries of which there are several,” Mr Dantos told Neos Kosmos.
The active community member stated that part of his reasoning for starting the list was to satisfy his own curiosity and expand his knowledge of the various associations.
Another key factor was his desire to document the groups as he found in his research that numerous groups that exist or existed had little to no online information.
“Something that really distressed me is the sad reality in how some associations are dying or have died already due to a lack of members and disinterest from the younger generations of those respective groups,” he said.
“It was also important as I found it so surprising how poor nearly everyone’s knowledge was of the different associations in Sydney and NSW, even among the elderly Greece-born generation which is heavily involved in multiple Greek organisations.”
What first started as a small list on Microsoft Word steadily grew as the 25-year-old uncovered more and more groups through his conversations with other members of the community.
“The main ways I learnt of the different organisations were from discussions about them with people from the general community, people in the Greek associations and through social media events and old newspaper articles,” he said.
“It helped to know lots of people and find out about more and more associations I, and many other people in the committees, have ever heard of in either Greek or English. It then became a useful tool when I needed to start inviting all organisations to major events and that is where I essentially added their emails and contact details.”
Mr Dantos stressed the significance of getting help from many people who provided him with updates on current presidents and email addresses to mention.
He hopes that the list can be a centralised hub that archives all associations, acts as a tool to find any and all organisations, showcases the huge contributions of NSW’s Greek community groups and provides easy access for everyone to get in contact with one another.
Mr Dantos remarked that his experience as a secretary sending invitations for events motivated him to simplify the process for others, given it provided him with access to a comprehensive list of contact information.
“I thought I should make it easier for everyone else to do it too since no one else has done it already and it was again recently an issue raised that some organisations just get forgotten to be invited to events or their emails did not work,” he said.
“I hope this list makes it easier for people to invite all organisations they want to their major events e.g. wreath laying commemoration services (25th March, 28th October, the Cypriot Invasion Anniversary) and major festivals like the Greek Festival of Sydney,” he said.
The 25-year-old noted that he is committed to keeping the list as up to date as possible, having recently added some other associations he had discovered.
“I have also welcomed and requested any additions and edits from different organisations throughout the process and have been making constant adjustments, which I will strive to continue doing as it evolves,” he said.
This list is an extension of Mr Dantos’ efforts to document the Greek community, with his website also featuring mapping projects that relate to our community as well as Greeks abroad.
Further information on this can be found at coostad.wixsite.com/my-site
