April 29, 2003. It is often said, from a Chinese proverb, that a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. This journey of trying to organize an International Chapter for the WVSU College of Medicine seemed at first to be a journey too long and too laborious to undertake. However, there were individuals who rose up to the challenge and put their foot forward, and despite being few, chose to begin the first step. Thus, begins this arduous journey for the benefit of our alma mater and its alumni.

     Come to think of it: anyone can simply send a boxful of goodies or write a thousand dollar check for the College. So why do we have to organize? I hate to keep quoting cliché’s, but again: in union there is strength. Binding together does not only make us stronger, but helps us cheer each other on, opens venues for helping each other, and increases our resources synergistically to give us greater capability to do more.

     Visions are unreachable if no one acts on it and dreams remain as dreams until you work to achieve it.

     The thirteen who hurdled their busy schedules (as everybody' s busy anyway) to come to Vegas on the 13th of April this year made that commitment. I am sure that there are others too who would have loved to be part of the "historical" organizing committee, but cannot come due to unavoidable circumstances. Too bad, they missed that chance to leave their signatures in our first By-Laws. But, that does not let them off the hook: everyone is still invited to join, sign up and be counted! In fact, those of us who already registered should be recruiting more members.

     We are reminded by our honorary Past President about the "Ningas Cogon Mentality". The organizational meeting and ratification of an interim Constitution and By-Laws is just the beginning. The next steps will be building the structure of the organization, both legally and logistically. This, and after this is done, we will need to work the actual projects that have been proposed and more that will be laid out later on.

     On the meantime, the top priority for all of us is: Recruit members. Any expatriate College of Medicine alumnus is qualified. Refer them to the website and have them register. Later on, we can create a membership committee, but for now, the responsibility is on each of us. Also, while we are still building the framework, you can continue to send your donations to the College directly, you can send Balikbayan boxes (journals, books, equipment, etc) through our drop off centers, and you can send membership dues and monetary donations to our Treasurer for organizational funds.

     A note on the finances however: we are still in the process of incorporating, getting a tax ID number as a non-profit organization, and then opening an account under the group's name (not any officer's name). When this is done, you can send membership dues and donations payable to the "WVSUCMAA-Inc-IC", not to any one person. As of the time of writing, our Treasurer and President have already signed the "Nonprofit Articles of Incorporation" and it is due for submission at the Las Vegas, NV Secretary of State with appropriate fees. The application forms (SS-4, Form 1024, etc of the Internal Revenue Service) for the tax identification number are also being processed at this time.

     An interim or temporary account with the Bank of America has also been opened. This is where payments by the original thirteen signatories are deposited. Our Treasurer is balancing the checking account and all expenditures from the miniscule account are being recorded properly for future official auditing. Money is needed for correspondence, documents and filing fees. All we have left as of April 23, 2004 is $479.57. Thus, the plea for alumni support to keep this going. We do need more funds to pay a lawyer and accountant to set up the Corporation, the account and the like.

     Another issue is the upcoming alumni Homecoming on September 24-25, 2004 in the Philippines. A lot is being discussed in the Forum section of the website, but the bottom line is, we seem to be uninvolved. We are unofficially invited by default of course, but now that we are somewhat "organized", it would have been good to be invited officially (for preparations, not just attendance). It seems a little too soon, too close and unorganized. Many questions have already been raised, on the first place, about the home-based alumni's inactivity. They seem to only buzz when it's time to party for these Homecomings. But even then, we have heard nothing and seen nothing. And we shall not hold our breath.

     Notwithstanding these issues, we shall proceed with encouraging everybody to attend anyway. After all, we are alumni and are therefore obliged to attend. It is still more than 4 months away, so there may be enough time to invite if they send the invitations yesterday. What the International Chapter can do, at the very least, is to send a letter that we are now existent, and that we are presenting to them our project proposals, and if they have any proposals of their own: to relay it to us. We shall also invite them to participate in the website and our forums. When we get the legal papers for incorporation and acquire enough logistics, we may even be able to send a keepsake donation of some sort by then.

     On the meantime, let us congratulate ourselves that we have at least finally embarked on this journey with that first tiny step. But not to stop there: we must place one foot in front of the other and move on.

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