SMCAANA Retreat Chicago IL 2011

SMCAANA’s First Annual Retreat Chicago IL April 7th-10th, 2011

Host Committee President:

Aftab Ahmed Co-Chairs:

Maleeha Ahsan, Kishwar Ali Isaq Memon Saroor Alam

Fatima Ahmad

Media/Press Liaison: Mujahid Ghazi

Host Committee Members Rehan Akhter Huma Alam Asif Anwar

Zahid Arfeen Khalid Bashir

Nuzhat Chalisa Sohail Hanif

Ayesha Iftikhar Faiza Kareemi Aqeel Khan Ejaz Khan

Tahir Khokher Nadeem Longi Ahmed Moiz

Muhammad Naved Imran Nisar

Moazzam Saeed Suhail Siddiqui Ata Sherwani Rahat Sheikh

Shahid Shekhani Asif Syed

Editor Naghmana Farrukh

Meeting Chair Mansoor Alam

SMCAANA Executive Committee

President Elect: Rukhshinda Hameedi

Secretary: M. Yaseen Abubaker

Vice President: Adil Rasheed Treasurer:

Intikhab Ahmad

Immediate Past President &

Retreat Coordinator Iqbal Zafar Hamid

Presidents Message Dear SMCians,

I would like to start with Thanking ALL of you for coming to the first Annual SMCAANA Retreat in Chicago, IL. It was a huge success ... more than my wildest expectations. I salute the Host Committee and specially the Chair - Mansoor Alam - for a job well done. As you all know, we started Thursday night with 1 hour of CME, fol-lowed by dinner and a light musical program, with over one hundred attendees.

We kicked-off Friday with additional CME, followed by a Social Forum in-volving Q&A with the Department of Homeland Security which was very well attended. The Q&A session was very engaging and satisfying for all the atten-dees. Thanks to Mujahid Ghazi for arranging this terrific panel of speakers.

The Friday evening banquet saw more than 200 SMCians reminiscing old SMC memories through a slide show created by Umar Murad. Afterwards we all listened to Todd Shea about his charity work in Pakistan. This was fol-lowed by the update on the SMC Project by Javed Suleman. I hope everyone enjoyed the dinner catered by Sabri Restaurant which was followed by an ex-citing performance by Jawad Ahmed. The fun continued until 3:30 AM with the Mushaira ! Again thanks to Mujahid Ghazi who single-handedly arranged the whole Mushaira. Continued on page 06

Message from the Meeting Chairman

Dear Friends ,

I am humbled by the response we got for the SMCAANA Retreat 2011. I am grateful to all of you who came to attend this event and because of you it was a success.

There were a lot of people who worked very hard to organize this event, Hats off to the entire SMCAANA Host committee without their support and hard work this event wound not have been possible. I would personally like to acknowledge the following members of the host committee for their commitment and hard work Co-Chair’s Drs Maleeha Ahsa, Saroor Alam, Fatima Ahmad , Kishwar Ali, Ishaqe Memon Members Host Committee Drs Mujahid Ghazi Rehan Ak-hter, Huma Alam, Asif Anwar, Zahid Arfeen, Khalid Bashir, Nuzhat Chalisa, Sohail Hanif, Ayesha Iftikhar, Faiza Kareemi, Aqeel Khan, Ejaz Khan, Tahir Khokher, Nadeem Longi, Ahmed Moiz, Muhammad Naved, Imran Nisar, Moazzam Saeed ,Suhail Siddiqui, Rahat Sheikh, Ata Sherwani, Shahid Shek-hani, Asif Syed. Continued on page 07

Dr. Mansoor Alam Meeting Chair

Dr .Aftab Ahmed President

SMCAANA

SMCAANA Host Committee Welcomes You!

SMCAANA’S FIRST ANNUAL RETREAT CHICAGO

SMCAANA Retreat 2011 Host Committee

First SMCAANA Retreat April 7th - 10th 2011 Chicago On behalf of the host committee of SMCAANA, we would like to welcome you to our first annual retreat in Chicago. This is the start of a new tradition that we will build upon. This retreat will not only reunite you with your old alumni friends, but also in-troduce you to new members. What we hope to accomplish is to build a strong foundation for not only SMC alumni, but the future students of SMC as well. We invite you to join us from April 7th to April 10th .There will be terrific musi-cal entertainment and dinner on April 8th and April 9th. A Social Forum is planned with the pride of SMC, Dr. Shahid Masood, on April 9th. CME activity and a City tour is available. Other wonderful family friendly activities will also be happening. We highly encourage you to visit our website http://smcalumni.com/ where you will be able to register online and get more information about the event! We all hope to see you and your family at our first annual retreat.

Members Host Committee Rehan Akhter, Huma Alam, Asif Anwar, Zahid Arfeen, Khalid Bashir, NuzhatChalisa, Sohail Hanif, Ayesha Iftikhar, Faiza Kareemi, Aqeel Khan, Ejaz Khan, Tahir Khokher, Nadeem Longi, AhmedMoiz, Muhammad Naved, Imran Nisar, Moazzam Saeed, Suhail Siddiqui, Rahat Sheikh, Ata Sherwani, Shahid Shekhani & Asif Syed

Media/Press Liaison Mujahid Ghazi

Retreat Coordinator Iqbal Zafar Hamid

President Aftab Ahmed

Co-Chair’s Maleeha Ahsan, Saroor Alam, Fatima Ahmad, Kishwar Ali, Isaq Memon

Meeting Chair Mansoor Alam

SMCAANA Bylaws Committee Report 2011

“The report by

no intention is a

final document

and should be

taken as an

evolutionary

process in the

history of this

organization”

Recommendations

This year the By Laws Committee plans to lay the grounds for expanding the Bylaws of SMCAANA to encompass the scope of its operations. This report intends to apprise the members of SMCAANA of the Current State of Affairs of the organization and the out-come of maintaining status quo. It plans to show the need for major changes in its operations in order to keep the health of the organization and ensure its longevity.

All the changes that will be proposed need to be agreed upon in principle by the mem-bers of SMCAANA as it is for them all that these changes are being proposed.

Once the changes are debated and agreed upon in the General Body Meeting of April 2011 the Bylaws that will institutionalize those changes will be formulated and hopefully be completed by the end of this Committee’s Term The current By Laws are very Basic and do not encompass all the activities of the Organization which leaves significant ambi-guity in differentiating Mandated and Optional activities. On the other hand we are aware that this is an organization that relies on valuable free time given by Physician Members so its operations should not mandate complex and time consuming activities that are unrealistic. For this reason the focus will be on conceptual changes that are cost effective less time consuming but more natural and productive.

We all are part of the same fabric that is woven around the Noble Art of Healing and so I feel this organization should have a Motto that signifies its Character and its Endeavors. I would request all the members to submit a “motto” so we can choose one them. The report by no intention is a final document and should be taken as an evolutionary process in the history of this organization. The ideas proposed are nascent and genuine and may affect some of us but they we not perceived keeping any individual in mind. The debate that will ensue should keep the same spirit of keeping the best interest of the or-ganization above anyone's personal interest Current State of Affairs. Continued on page 10

Old Members New Members

The Entrance The Compound The Hallway


“It is time for a

CHANGE.

I ask for your vote

as a Vote for a New

Direction for

APPNA

A Vote of

Conviction

A Vote of

Conscience.”

Dr Javed Suleman

Candidate for

President-elect

APPNA 2012

I have a strong

belief that future

of APPNA can be

brighter and better

than the present

and I feel it is our

moral responsibility

to make it so. This

fundamental

principle has guided

me in my career to

serve APPNA for

the last 13 years .

Dr Mubasher Rana

Candidate for

President-elect

APPNA 2012

Presidents Message Continued.

Saturday morning again started with CME followed by the largest attended General Body Meeting ever for SMCAANA, with active participation of Membership Committee Chair (Taqi Azam), By-laws Committee Chair (Umar Murad), and Advi-sory Committee Chair (Nadeem Haque). Their inputs and recommenda-tions will continue to make SMCAANA stronger. Saturday afternoon saw the highlight of retreat - a 4 hour candid discussion with the pride of SMC, Shahid Masood. It was successfully moderated by Umar Murad and ably as-sisted by Jamil Farooqi. Everyone will agree this was a hugely memorable event ! The banquet and award presentation on Saturday night was attended by over 260 SMCians, the APPNA Executive Committee, and all the candidates for APPNA 2012 offices. The highlight of the banquet was a presentation by Saeed Akhtar - who came all the way from Pakistan just to attend the retreat and provide some inside details on the Sindh Medi-cal University project. The performance by the legend Sohail Rana on Saturday night was attended by more than 600 people. The Retreat ended on Sun-day afternoon with an Ex-ecutive Committee meeting of SMCAANA, 1 hour

CME, and a heavy Paki-stani breakfast! This was the Fourth main event of the year. As you all know, we had a very successful get-together of SMCians in New York in January. In March we had 2 back-to-back get togeth-ers in Kentucky - one in Louisville at my home and on the following day in Lexington at Azim Khan Niazi's home. Additionally, I would like to remind everyone to not forget to return the ballots for the APPNA elections as soon as you receive them. Last date to mail the ballots is June 23 please mail them ASAP. Before we part, I would like to thank many SMCians who have made 2011 an extremely success-ful year-to-date. Thank you Mansoor Alam, Maleeha Ahsan, Kishwar Ali, Ishaque Memon, Saroor Alam, Fatima Ahmad, Mujahid Ghazi for taking a leadership role in the First SMCAANA Re-treat. Thank you Executive Committee - Rukshinda, Adil, Yaseen, Intikhab, and our revolutionary past president I. Zafar Hamid ... without your continued support none of the above would be possible. It won't be fair unless I also thank all the committee chairs - Umar, Taqi,

Nadeem, Rizwan, Kamal, Emmanuel, Mansoor, and Javed. Their recommenda-tions and execution help make SMCAANA stronger every day. Lastly, I thank Azim K. Ni-azi, Babar Zuberi, Asif Choudry, Furrukh Khan, Sajid Ahmed, Faiq Hameedi, Nadeem Kazi, Rahat Abbas, Ghayas Ahmad, Suhail Sid-diqui, Sabir Khan, Naghmana Shafi, and my wife Farzina Ahmed for their help and unconditional sup-port throughout. I am looking forward to see-ing you all in St Louis, MO during July 4th Weekend for APPNA Summer Meeting ! Kind Regards, Aftab Ahmed, MD President, SMCAAN


“I would like to

start with

Thanking ALL of

you for coming to

the first Annual

SMCAANA

Retreat in

Chicago, IL”

Aftab Ahmed

The encouragement and guidance given to us by the entire executive committee is greatly appreciated. Thank you SMCAANA Executive Committee President Elect: Rukhshinda Hameedi Vice President: Adil Rash-eed, Secretary: M. Yaseen Abubaker, Treasurer: Intikhab Ahmad Immediate Past President And Retreat Coordinator : Iqbal Zafar Hamid. Drs Faiq Hameedi, Maleeha Ahsan and Nadeem Haque conducted the stage very well and the credit goes to all three of

them for keeping the pro-gram on time and organ-ized.

Dr Umar Murad was the man behind the Social fo-rum with Dr Shahid Masood ,he did a great job on the stage as well . Plus the super hit DVD Yadein was produced and directed by no other than Umar .

The two main architects of the retreat were President SMCAANA Dr Aftab Ah-med and Past President SMCAANA/Retreat Coor-dinator Dr Iqbal Zafar Hamid they had designed

this retreat and worked tirelessly for the last one year to make it a reality.

Would also like to thank Dr Saeed Akhtar and Dr Shahid Masood who took time off from there busy schedule to be part of this event.

Lastly one person who I would like to acknowledge and thank is President DOGANA Dr Sohail Khan . It was a pleasure working with him. SMC ZINDABAD! Mansoor Alam Chair SMCAANA Retreat Chicago 2011.

Meeting Chairman's Message Continued

“I am humbled by the

response we got

for the SMCAANA

Retreat 2011.

I am grateful to all

of you who came to

attend this event

and because of you

it was a success ”

Mansoor Alam


SMCAANA General Body Meeting

Minutes of SMCAANA Retreat meeting

Held on April 9th 2011

Location: Westin Chicago

Executive members attended the meeting:

Dr. I. Zafar Hamid-Immediate Past President Dr. Aftab Ahmed-President

Dr. Adil Rasheed, Vice President Dr. Rukshanda Hamidi-President Elect

Dr. Yaseen Abubaker-Secretary

Members attended the meeting: 60 or more

Dear Fellow Smcians, this was a brainstorming meeting. Unlike previous meet-ings, along with senior SMC graduates, youngster as well attended the meeting. In

this meeting number of attendees was highest ever for any SMCAANA general body meeting. Every one participated with their thoughts how to make the

SMCAANA a more vibrant APPNA Alumni.

For Complete minutes of the meeting click on the following link :

http://smcalumni.com/

SMCAANA Membership Committee Report 2011

“The membership

committee should

encourage all

members to reach

out to Friends,

family, business

associates, and

other’s by asking

Them to JOIN,

SMCAANA/APPNA”

Taqi Azam

The Membership Committee shall obtain applications and approve requests for membership in SMCAANA and would like to extend an official welcome to new members/Returning members. The Committee recruits members and assists in the development of strategies for promoting membership in SMCAANA and APPNA.

The drive for SMCAANA and APPNA membership for this year has already started. Please volunteer yourself/Friends as member of committee and to take charge of your Graduating class membership. Our strength in APPNA depends on the number of our membership in APPNA.

Our Mission

Our mission is to connect and reconnect alumni, students, parents and friends to the College and each other through experiences and communications for the purpose of generating multifaceted support for Sindh Medical College.

The Membership Committee is dedicated to an effective membership process that strives to promote inclusion and engagement of members and connect with each other to become a world-class alumni organization that sustains and strengthens the lifelong bond between alumni and Sindh Medical College

Objective

Increase membership, member satisfaction and membership revenue.

Goals • Retain 80%of current membership during renewal • Recruit new members, and reach collective goal of 500 – 750 SMCAANA members this year • Become number two alumni in APPNA. • Increase opportunities for engaging new members with organization during this

year

Committee Role and Responsibilities

The role of the membership committee is to develop and implement an action plan for membership development. To be effective, SMCAANA need members. Your Alumni’s ability to serve the members, support Sindh Medical College, and develop future leaders is directly related to the size and strength of your Alumni’s membership base.

The responsibilities of the club membership committee summarized below

• Develop committee goals to achieve Alumni’s membership goals for the This year. • Conduct assessments to determine strengths and weaknesses. • Work with harmony to create a positive image of SMCAANA that is attractive to prospective and current members alike. • Develop programs to educate and train new and current members, about

SMCAANA

Continued on page 13

Dr. Taqi Azam, Chair, Membership

Committee

SMCAANA bylaws Committee Report Continued.


The “Culture”

that we would

want to propose

to help us

create the

necessary

Bylaws, is of a

“Family”. We all

are part of an

“SMC Family”.

As you all are aware that with a lot of hard work, sparing of precious time and dedica-tion our seniors have been able to form and carry SMCAANA on their shoulders that we are very proud to be a member of. We all have a lot of personal and social affiliations in our life but the bond we have developed during our college years was one of a kind. I feel we should not just cherish it but structure this organization in such a way that our coming batches would be part of it with the same enthusiasm.

Our membership log shows we have handful of junior members. After the year 2000 our membership goes dramatically low. Considering the dynamics this is not very unex-pected as the years that we see the most are when maximum number of SMCians came to North America and also they had struggled together in very rough times to have per-sonal bonding between almost 10 batches. Also the fact that they are more settled and have more free time to spare for the organization is an added reason. In reality if we continue on this path SMCAANA will not last for more than 15-20 years at the most and will become a remnant from the past. So, now we have the responsibil-ity to come up with ideas that will prevent this from happening.

Obviously our seniors had a vision about us too and we would want the utmost gra-ciousness and blessing from them to entertain new ideas that have sound rational grounding and are not just based on anecdotal experiences and on experiences of other Alumni. Novel ideas are usually hard to accept but can lead to dramatic results also. In our current state of affairs we really have nothing to lose as our major goal is to pre-vent an Inverted Pyramid (the top membership being the oldest and bottom newest) to grow and actually to flip it over so the organizational membership hierarchy will be viable for years to come. In the next 5 years if we are able to invert this statistical Pyra-mid I think we can call it as a success.

The above was a very broad outline of our goal but a very very important task to accom-plish. The current Bylaws if you see are very basic and preliminary for an organization to function. We have to alter them such that they can help create a mindset and hierar-chy of officials who are obligated in many a ways to Invert the Membership Pyramid.

Proposals for Discussion

The “Culture” that we would want to propose to help us create the necessary Bylaws, is of a “Family”. We all are part of an “SMC Family”. Some are elders and established while some are still sprouting and need our help to stand up walk and run. The more we help them, the more they will feel bonded with us as an organization. We have to out-reach to them like parents do to their kids and Brothers and Sisters do to their younger ones. The process should start from the Administration of SMC to diligently keep a list of doctors that are coming to North America to the Licensing Boards of North America.

We don t have an idea of our current resources but a stationary office with one perma-nent employee and a filing cabinet is requisite to institutionalize this effort of tracking young graduates. We should welcome them to our fold with our attractive folder, re-vamped website and social media. Then trying to help them with things that are smart and within e.g. free membership with online medical sites like Uptodate.com, Epocrates etc can be the cherry on top of the pie. The door to all of these freebies should be through our Website. Continued on page 11

SMCAANA bylaws Committee Report Continued.

“Our social

gatherings

should be more

focused on

making sure that

juniors in the

Chapter are

coming or not. We

should be

bringing more

young graduates

up on the stage

and giving them

confidence and

Leadership

Skills”

By institutionalizing basic help we can achieve bonding with junior members with a modest financial and personal commit-ment. Initially we propose free membership for a year or two years and as they go through their training to nominally in-crease the fees till they become established and by that time theoretically they will be bonded enough to have a sense of their own responsibility towards an organiza-tion that helped them and was there to answer any questions if they had. Indeed it is a financial investment in their early years but that is exactly what a family does for its young ones.

Every Smcian living in North America should actually be a member of the organization. We can even call some members as “dormant”. They may become “Active “ one day. The reason for our bond is SMC and that College does need our help. We propose to have it made part of our Bylaws to have at least one project an year with no financial bur-den. We should also make it part of our bylaws pertaining to the college to have an An-nual Report about the state of Affairs of our college and the log of students coming to North America. Our social gatherings should be more focused on making sure that juniors in the Chapter are coming or not. We should be bringing more young graduates up on the stage and giv-ing them confidence and Leadership Skills. I strongly propose 2 years of President ship so the official has enough time to show a difference with his Leadership skills. I also think it is futile to have a post of President Elect. A few months before the end of the two year term an election should elect our new President. I also propose eliminating the post of Vice President to bring the Executive Committee in odd numbers to pass resolutions. The concept of “President Elect” and “Recent Past President” has an inherent affection to a post rather than highlighting the achievement of the post thus should be archived.

Our membership committee should give an annual report to the President about status of new memberships. We can even assign a month as “New Membership Month” to encour-age the drive. We have to talk with hotels, car rental places and other businesses to get perks to offer our members. That will drastically affect the membership count.

These are just concepts with some examples on how to steer the organization towards viability and health and any other proposals or idea from any member out of the commit-tee will be entertained by the Committee if presented before June 30th 2011. Once we agree on changes/proposals then the Bylaws can be formulated to structure the Organization with certain mandatory working principles to ensure effective and clear roles of officers and roles in SMCAANA. Dr Umar Murad Chair Bylaws committee

Dr. Umar Murad Chair Bylaws Committee

Yadein By Umar Murad http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zNoHmQrNqCc&feature=email

Membership Committee report Continued

“Retention

efforts should

be a priority for

the membership

committee”

Taqi Azam

Membership Development

Developing your Alumni’s membership requires both recruitment and retention efforts. New members bring important benefits to the Alumni, including Fresh ideas and new energy. Existing members are crucial to Sustaining your Alumni membership and continuing the good works of your Alumni. To recruit new members, the membership committee sets goals, develops a plan for achieving them, and communi-cates with committee members in order To implement the plan. Although the committee leads the Alumni’s recruiting Efforts, recruiting new members are a responsibility of each SMCIAN. The membership committee should encourage all members to reach out to Friends, family, business associates, and other’s by asking Them to JOIN, SMCAANA/APPNA.

Retention efforts should be a priority for the membership committee. The process for developing SMCAANA membership is a fluid course of action That often includes the following stages:

• Identify – A potential SMCIAN • Introduce – SMCAANA, and its website • Invite – to Events, like SMCAANA Retreat, Annual APPNA Meeting • Inform and orient – With Previous SMCAANA Work/Projects • Involve – Invite them to get involved, in committee’s, Events and leadership Roles • Educate – Regarding Power and strength of a Very organized Alumni

Membership Committee is a very crucial component of Alumni, we need to work hard as a winning team to achieve our goal for the year of 2011.

Thank you,

Taqi Azam,

Chair, Membership Committee, SMCAANA Immediate-Past president, APPNA-AZ Chapter


Social Form with the Department of Homeland Security Friday April 8th 2011

SMCAAN Friday Night Banquet April 8th 2011


Friday Evening Entertainment Program


Mushaira Friday Evening April 8th 2011

Evening GupShup

Registration Desk


Social Forum with Dr Shahid Masood Saturday April 9th 2011


Class Reunions Saturday April 9th 2011


SMCAAN Saturday Night Banquet April 9th 2011


Award Ceremony Saturday April 9th 2011


Saturday Evening Entertainment Program

“I envision a united,

transparent and

Financially sound

APPNA that will

enhance our

medical

education ,social

networking and

philanthropic

efforts”

Jalil Khan

Candidate for

APPNA Treasurer

2012


“I Believe that the

next big challenge

for APPNA is not only

to continue its

growth and attract

new members from the

Pakistani American

community of

physicians, but also to

concentrate on

effective and

participatory

membership of the

existing members”

Farid Qazi

Candidate for APPNA

Treasurer 2012


Naghmana (Shafi) Farrukh MD graduated from Sind Medical College in 1987. She was well known in Pakistan as a gold medalist debator, host of PTV programs and writer. She is working as a pediatrician in Ohio. She continues to write in Urdu and English. Her articles are published in Northwest Signal and other newspapers.

SMCAANA Retreat Chicago IL 2011

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Transcript of SMCAANA Retreat Chicago IL 2011