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  Grand President Acceptance speech 2008by Michael Rossi  Reverend Fathers, members of the clergy and religious, officers and members of the Central Council, brothers and sisters of the Italian Catholic Federation.Good morning and thank you for this wonderful day. This means a lot to me. To be able to stand before you for the second time and accept this most prestigious position as your Grand President, is truly an honor for me. I promise to continue to do my best as your Grand President, and to assure you that preserving the ideals and aims of the Federation is my top priority. This is my commitment to you. Before I begin, I want to thank a few people. First, I want to thank the Orange District and the Convention Directors for a wonderful convention. All the hard work was worth it. Thank you, delegates, for consistently re-electing me to serve on Central Council. For nine years, you have supported me. Thank you very much for your continued friendship and confidence. Thank you my fellow Central Council members for re-electing me to this high honor as Grand President. I appreciate your continued confidence in me, and I thank you for serving faithfully on the committees I appointed you to. I would not be here without the help of my district supporters, the outstanding people of the Santa Clara Valley District. Thank you for the hospitality room, the financial support, and your continued friendship. Lastly, thanks to my brothers and sisters in Branch 391, St. Martin of Tours, in San Jose. You support me and encourage me in ways you don't know. Just by your friendship and hard work, I am truly inspired by you. I would now like to introduce my family. Marcie, you are the love of my life, my traveling companion and my best friend. You deserve this honor as much as I do. Without you, I would not be here. You represent me, you encourage me, you correct my mistakes, and you are a great first lady. Mom and Dad, you taught me to be who I am today. You taught me respect and values, taught me about hard work, gave me my heritage, taught me to value family first, and gave me my religion. Thanks for everything. My children, Mike and Kristy, thanks for taking your valuable time away from your lives to make the trip this weekend. Your presence means a great deal to me, because family means a great deal to me. I love both of you. I hope one of you gets a chance to be Grand President someday. What do you think? We are especially fortunate to have Father Daniel Cardelli as our Spiritual Director. He is a great person to have on our team. He helps me by sharing his wisdom and guidance at Executive committee meetings. He also participates in Convention Directors, he writes a wonderful column in the Bollettino, and he keeps in touch with all of us by email, except Dave Botta requires a phone call. We are very fortunate and blessed to have him as a member of our ICF family. Through the years, I have seen the wonderful things our members do for their Church and their community. You give countless hours of devotion and charity, millions of dollars in aid to your fellow man, and a true love for your faith and heritage. I applaud you. You have brought joy to thousands of Cooley's Anemia patients, seminarians, college students, developmentally disabled, our parishes, and our communities. We are making a difference. The Central Council committees are there to help you fulfill your mission. One of my first tasks as Grand President will be to appoint, and re-appoint, committee members so they can carry out the programs of the Federation. Central Council has a lot of good and talented people, and I will rely on them to ensure that the ICF is a better organization for everyone. A President is only as good as the people on his team. Steve Fuentes will continue as chair of the Convention Directors committee. Thanks Steve for a wonderful convention in Garden Grove. Keep up the great work. The Public Relations Committee will be chaired by Nettie Descalso DelNero. She has been working diligently with the editor and the committee to make the Bollettino and the website, icf.org, into better tools to reach out to you, to communicate better with you, to educate you about the programs of the ICF, and to let you know what's happening in the Federation. Roselynne Jarrett will chair the Membership committee. She and the committee have made great progress in turning around our membership to the point where very soon we may see a net increase in membership. However, the committee can't do it alone without you, the members. Thank you for all your hard work to bring in new members and retain the ones you have. You are making a difference. Jim Jones, will chair the Deputy Program. Over the past year, Jim has been successful in helping the local deputies and district deputies to help several troubled branches. Jim, thanks for your dedication, and keep up the good work. Jim will see that deputies get the assistance they need from Central Council to help them help their districts and branches. But he can't do it alone. He needs all of you to help. The Executive Committee will continue to oversee the formation of new branches. Through the hard work and dedication of Dave Botta and Carmen Kilcullen, we were able to start two new branches: Branch 434 in Tucson, Arizona, and Branch 435 in Morgan Hill, California. Thank you Dave and Carmen. And a special thanks to Jim Friebel for opening the door in Morgan Hill. Dave and Carmen will continue to follow up on more opportunities in Arizona and Reno areas. We wish you the best of luck. Dave Botta will also chair the Workshop committee. If your district would like to host a workshop, please contact Dave. You can bet that a workshop with Dave and his committee will be informative, and a lot of fun. Whether you know it or not, the Ways and Means committee helps keep our dues lower than they otherwise would be. You see, the primary responsibility of the committee is to use creative means to earn money for the Federation. So, we have a golf tournament, a Convention raffle, and a Calendar, each of which earns thousands of dollars for the Federation to support our many programs. Leonard Rossi will chair this committee. Leonard has chaired the golf tournament for several years, and each year it has been a great success. Nina Malone will continue as chair of the Heritage committee. Her work in the past year to encourage branches to develop heritage programs is paying dividends. Even though the ICF is a little smaller today, you have responded with overwhelming support of our charity and religious programs. Thanks to you, they are as strong today as they ever were. The new committees will see that the programs of the ICF continue to support you in the many hours and dollars that you contribute. To carry on these wonderful programs, Jane Dianda will chair the Apostolate and Charity Committee. The primary responsibility of the committee is to annually recommend candidate organizations as our National Charity. For several years, the committee has worked closely with the Cooley's Anemia program at Oakland Children's Hospital to promote outreach to ease the pain, and research to find a cure, of this deadly disease that afflicts Italian, Mediterranean, and Asian children. Dante Galeazzi will chair the Scholarship committee. His task will be to see that members and branches continue to support this program, and that the word gets out to the students to apply for our generosity. Our young people are our future. Ario Gregori will chair the Gifts of Love program. Thank you Ario for steering this wonderful committee to help those in need who have no where else to turn. If you pay attention to the stories of the people we've helped, then you will truly know the joy of being a member in the Italian Catholic Federation. There are other committees of the ICF that I didn't mention, but know that whoever runs the committee will be working for the good of the Federation. I expect all committees to serve you well. I remind you of my promise to do my best and always assure that the ideals and aims of the Federation are my top priority. This is my commitment to you. My dear members, Christ's light is with us, and guides us and blesses us every step of the way. I thank God for the blessings He has bestowed on me in my life. I have my health, my family, my Church, my friends, and the Italian Catholic Federation. I am a happy man. God bless you, and God bless the Italian Catholic Federation. Italian Catholic Federation, 8393 Capwell Drive, Suite 110, Oakland CA 94621 tel: 888/ICF-1924; 510/633-9058; fax: 510/633-9758; Email: info@icf.org Website designed by HYPERSPHERE |