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2Feb

STAC Annual Thanksgiving

Categories: Annual Thanksgiving
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STAC Alumni 2019 Annual Thanksgiving and Feast of St. Thomas

The Alumni Members of ST. Thomas Aquinas Catholic Chaplaincy (STAC), University of Ilorin at the beginning of every year during the feast of St. Thomas Aquinas usually come out en masse  across the various zones to thank God for the success of the previous year and praying for a better new year.

During this year’s celebration which was held on the 27th of January, 2019 across all zones a lot of activities were carried out including the thanksgiving mass, Zonal Meeting, Light Refreshments as well as group photographs, it was indeed  a huge success.  Zones like the Oyo Zone were priviledged to have the Bishop of Oyo Diocese celebrate with them.

The executives were pleased with the turnout of members and are using this medium to encourage other members who were not in attendance to try and participate in other zonal/national activities scheduled to take place within the year.

The Next activity for the year will be the Lenten Retreat which has been scheduled to take place on the 23rd of March, 2019 with the Theme: The Crosses we Must Bear. We are all encouraged to participate in our various zones as the venue for the event will be made available as soon as possible.

The calendar of event is as shown below and can also be downloaded online on: https://www.stacalumni.com/alumni-calendar/

Pictures from the various zones are as shown below:

 

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25May

17th Anniversary Address

Categories: Speeches
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To download this address: Click Here

Presidential Address Delivered to STAC Alumni Association to Commemorate Her 17th Anniversary, on May 27th, 2018

Dear Brethren,

Calvary greetings to you all and happy 17th anniversary celebration.

On this special day, I write to congratulate you all for being part of the 17th Anniversary of our great Alumni Association. We thank the good Lord for thus far he has led us, it is my utmost prayer that He will continue to guide and lead us all successfully to our pre-destined end.

This year has really been a blessing to us all, as our theme of the year goes “Our Year of Faith and Work . . . James 2:17” we believe that in the remaining part of the year we shall continue to hear greater testimonies of the wonderful deeds of our Lord in the lives of every member of our association.

Usually, during occasions of this magnitude, we seize the opportunity to abreast ourselves of the origin of the alumni association, but this year because of the advent of technology, I shall not explain much but will encourage all of us especially our newly inducted members to visit our website on  www.stacalumni.com/about-us to get a comprehensive history of the alumni association and other important articles of the alumni. In summary, we give special regards to Engr. Matthew Ayokunle Olota and the team of the pioneer executives for yielding to the call of the then Chaplain Rev. Fr. David Anekwe (C.S.Sp.) to create an alumni association. Kindly visit the above link for a detailed explanation.

Achievements

So far, we thank the good Lord for the strength He has given us as executives to pilot the affairs of this great association. In course of the year, we had the following achievements:

  1. Increase in the welfare of our members by ensuring we have at least a representative in any of the events of our members.
  2. Incorporation of our birthday updates on our website since yahoo and gmail no longer offer the services of birthday auto notification. Realizing how important it is to wish a loved one “Happy Birthday” on his/her day made us to resolve to the use of our website, thanks to the alumni “I.T” team that assisted. You can visit www.stacalumni.com/birthday-celebrants/ daily to view birthday celebrants and wish them well in the comment session.
  3. The improvement and standardization of our alumni cooperative society (STAMCOS). It is our dream that the STAC Alumni Cooperative Society will soonest become the key cooperative society of all our members. We appreciate the team of the STAMCOS management executives for a job well done, you can get details about the cooperative on www.stacalumni.com/stamcos
  4. Mobilization and continuous awareness of the STAC Alumni Hostel Project, work is scheduled to commence hopefully by September as we await other members who are yet to key into the investment. Details of the hostel project can be found on www.stacalumni.com/hostel-update thanks to the members of the building committee.
  5. The improvement of the mentorship programme and provision of an official career nugget that will help not only the NFCSers but also our fresh graduates and those who need to diversify in their career, thanks to the mentorship coordinators. It is noted that there is a whatsapp group for the mentorship team (Alumni Coordinators) and the mentee (NFCSers) to ensure effective correspondence.
  6. Provision of IT placement for some NFCSers, although not quite comprehensive but we hope to do more subsequently. Hence we appeal that if you have vacancies for IT students in your places of work do kindly inform us.
  7. Financial support to the following:
  • To the Spiritan Community (North-West) on the occasion of their annual harvest.
  • To STAC Chaplaincy for the renovation and face lift of the church.
  • To Rev. Fr. Chike Oguejiofor (C.S.Sp.) for solidarity on the Illusory alleged involvement in a police case. visit (www.stacalumni.com/father-oguejiofor-cleared-of-criminal-charges/) for details
  • To NFCS for assistance in their academic seminar and transportation of the remedial students.

Challenges:

These past year haven’t been without challenges, below are some listed challenges we encountered:

  1. Lack of commitment from members and none participation of members to outlined zonal activities.
  2. Massive drift of members from Yahoo to Gmail hence our drive to transfer our database to Gmail group.
  3. Members hardly attend other members activities even when the event is within their zone.
  4. None payment of annual dues which we all know is our major source of income. Our annual dues register so far is on www.stacalumni.com/annual-dues/ you can see that only few people have paid, we appeal to all members to try and pay up their dues so as to enable us carry out the alumni activities effectively.
  5. Lack of jobs and viable means of livelihood by members which hampers their effective participation.

Prospects

Our projection for the future is as detailed below:

  1. Increase our welfare and communication among members.
  2. Incorporate all alumni members with gmail account to our newly created gmail group. With respect to this, we promise that all alumni members on the database shall be called, so kindly oblige our executives when they call you.
  3. To aide communication across all members at an instant time, we have created a Telegram Group which will enable us communicate effectively among all members. Telegram is an instant messenger like WhatsApp but can accomodate larger members in a group, so please if you don’t have the telegram App yet, kindly download from the google play store and join our group chat on: https://t.me/joinchat/IqvDjFKCh_AVwVUyCy9A1A
  4. Mobilize our hostel project developer to commence the hostel project soonest.

Statistics

The statistics of our database as well as our communication channels is as detailed below:

CHANNEL                            STATS                       LINK

Database:                                  953                              –

Yahoogroup:                             564                            stacalumni@yahoogroups.com

Facebook:                                  593                            www.facebook.com/groups/stacalumni

SMS Portal:                               723                            STACAlumni

Twitter:                                     46                              @STACAlumni

Instagram:                                 9                                stacalumni

Telegram                                   11                              https://t.me/joinchat/IqvDjFKCh_AVwVUyCy9A1A

Website                                     45                              www.stacalumni.com

Conclusion

Our Alumni Association is growing daily and we keep trying to make necessary improvements to ensure it gets better. We sincerely appeal to you all to join us actively to take the alumni to its desired projection. I will like to remind you of the alumni quote which I always do on occasion like this: “What is my quota to the development and sustainability of STAC Alumni” It is my utmost prayer that the good Lord will continue to bless us all and grant us the greatest yearnings of our heart.

I thank you for your time, wishing us all a happy and fulfilling 17th Anniversary celebration.

Long Live NFCS!

Long Live STAC Alumni!!

Long Live the Catholic Church!!!

STAC Alumni…………One Big Family United in Christ.

 

Okoka Darlington
President, STAC Alumni

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21May

Alumni 17th Anniversary

Categories: Anniversary News
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STAC Alumni was established on May 27th 2001 after some group of alumni members yielded to the call of the then Chaplain Rev. Fr. David Anekwe (C.S.Sp.). This year, the alumni marks her 17th anniversary.

STAC fondly referred to as “a home away from home” has produced quite a number of great minds who had participated actively in the Nigeria Federation of Catholic Students (NFCS) during their stay at the University of Ilorin. She had her first set of graduates as far back as 1980 and over the years had several STACites graduating into the larger world.

It was noticed, that there existed a loss of communication amongst STACites of different graduating years as well as a non-existing relationship between graduates and undergraduates which continued for several years without any significant solution.

Prompt to this fact, the idea about a forum which could reunite all members who shared in this brotherly love irrespective of their year of graduation came to mind. The then chaplain Rev. Fr. David Anekwe (CSSp) persistently advised graduating STACites on the importance of constituting an alumni body in order to keep the STAC family system going. A group of graduating STACites heeded to this advice and after a great deal of brainstorming came up with the mode of operation of STAC Alumni. This was a welcomed idea upon reaching every member of the Chaplaincy and on Sunday, 27th May, 2001 the pioneer set of eight (8) executives were inaugurated into office by the then chaplain Rev. Fr. David Anekwe (CSSp).

The pioneer executives worked tirelessly to ensure that all past members were contacted and co-opted into the association while those still undergoing their program were automatically sworn in to the alumni body during a sendoff party organized by themselves tagged “Alleluia Night” which the alumni executives ensured they attended in order to advice them on the importance of being an active member and induct them into the group.

STAC Alumni has its headquarters in St. Thomas Aquinas Catholic Chaplaincy, University of Ilorin, Ilorin, Kwara State. It operates from four strategic zones: Abuja, Lagos, Port-Harcourt and Ilorin, that are each headed by a coordinator for effective outreach. But as at 2011 during our 10th year anniversary, the number of zones drastically increased to Eight to cover the increasing strength of our members, the additional zones include (Ogun, Oyo, Kogi and Edo/Delta zones)

We thank the good Lord for thus far He has led us; “17 years” we pray He grants us the grace that through this means we will be able to speak out for our voices to be heard in order to correct the anomalies that poses our present generation.

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