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Harvard Club of Serbia received the first HAA Clubs Committee Award |
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Monday, 25 February 2008 |
The Harvard Club of Serbia was awarded Club of the Year
in recognition for events such as the 125 years exhibition, the debate, and
also the ethos and founding spirit of the club. This is an important moment as
we are such a small club in comparison to some of the US based clubs which have
thousands of members and even entire buildings at their disposal. Tamara
Pavasovic was in Boston and attended the cemermony on behalf of the Club. Here
is her report.
"The (January 2008) banquet was absolutely
wonderful. The actual award-giving took only about 5 minutes or less (they said
2 sentences about the 150 years of US-Serbian relations event last year, and
that's it), but people's response to the announcement that Serbia won the award
was overwhelming, and we received a thundering applause and cheering (it was really
incredible.) Later, when the Dean of the Business School gave his keynote
speech after dinner, he mentioned Serbia three (!!!) times, nothing in
specific, but kept referring to Serbia in a humorous (but very sincere) way.
After the ceremony, many many people came up to me (I think there were perhaps
300 people in the audience total - not sure, HAA can confirm this) to
congratulate me for our chapter, saying they were honored to have a chapter
working so diligently in Serbia, and one person even said "something
magical happened" at the banquet when the award for Serbia was announced.
So all in all, it was really fantastic - not because of
the actual awards ceremony (which was short and not that glamorous), but
because of the way people reacted to the news. It was truly great positive
exposure for Serbia (especially with all of the negative press here
lately) and I think, at least for the people in
attendance, does wonders for improving people's perception of Serbia generally,
which is definitely something we should strive toward and be proud of
achieving."
On the photo:
L-R top row: Carl Muller AB'73, MBA/JD'76, Clubs Committee Co-Chair; Jonathan Byrnes DBA'80, HAA President; Armando Santacruz MBA'87, Clubs Committee Co-Chair
L-R bottom row: Tamara Pavasovic GSAS'11; Angela Lin (representing Mia Riverton AB'99); Modesta Garcia EdM'79; Margaret McCurry LF'87 (representing the HC Chicago)
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