February 16, 2018

UNA turns 124 in a convention year

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Each year around the time of what is now known as Presidents’ Day, we celebrate another significant event: the founding of the Ukrainian National Association on February 22, 1894, on the birthday of George Washington. We do so because not only is the UNA the publisher of our community’s two most important newspapers, but also because of the UNA’s leading role in our community as the oldest, largest and strongest Ukrainian fraternal benefit society.

One hundred twenty-four years ago, 10 brotherhoods with a total membership of 439 people and assets of $220 met in Shamokin, Pa., and resolved to establish a fraternal organization. Reporting on the historic convention that was to change the face and the fate of the Ukrainian American community, our sister publication, Svoboda wrote: “It has come to be. …Dear brothers, now that a great number of us have gotten together and founded the association, let us all join it. … You, who had been given up for lost by your brothers in Ukraine, let the world know that you are alive, and that here, in America, the life of the Ukrainian community is throbbing with vigor and activity. …The Ukrainian National Association has been founded, and the Ukrainian people in America have risen from the dead…”

The new association’s first regular convention took place just three months later, on May 30, also in Shamokin. Significantly, it was at that conclave that the Ukrainian national anthem, “Shche Ne Vmerla Ukraina,” was heard for the first time in America. It was a harbinger of developments to come as the UNA guided a community of immigrants from the “old country” in understanding their roots and promoting their national consciousness, while at the same time enlightening them about what it meant to be Americans.

This year the Ukrainian National Association’s anniversary takes on a special significance as it is marked during a convention year. The official announcement of the 39th Regular Convention, to be held at Soyuzivka Heritage Center on May 18-20, was published in our January 14 issue. UNA branches were advised that they have 60 days (through March 13) to elect their delegates and alternate delegates for the quadrennial convention, and many branches have since then published notices of their pre-convention meetings on the pages of The Ukrainian Weekly and Svoboda, the official publications of the UNA. It’s important that UNA members be involved in this process by attending those branch meetings and electing their representatives to the convention. After all, the convention is highest governing authority of the association. And at the 2018 convention delegates will learn about the new corporate governance structure that is to be implemented by the UNA, whereby the UNA General Assembly would be composed of a Corporate Board of Directors, an Audit Committee and a Fraternal Advisory Board. Delegates will also hear the reports of UNA officers and elect a new leadership.

At the convention, delegates would do well to recall the UNA’s founding principles, presented concisely in its mission statement: “In accordance with its charter, the Ukrainian National Association exists: to promote the principles of fraternalism; to preserve the Ukrainian, Ukrainian American and Ukrainian Canadian heritage and culture; and to provide quality financial services and products to its members. As a fraternal insurance society, the Ukrainian National Association reinvests its earnings for the benefit of its members and the Ukrainian community.” With that in mind, delegates will consider resolutions and recommendations for the well-being of the UNA, thus playing a strong part in setting the UNA agenda for the next four-year term and ensuring that it continues to nobly serve our Ukrainian community.

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