By Roland Francis Source: Goan Voice Daily Newsletter 20 April 2014 at www.goanvoice.org.uk
It was the late 1980s. A group of senior executives of the two associations who were personal and social friends and kept in contact with each other for the sake of the community's affairs, floated the idea of a merger. It made sense to them that not only the two Toronto Goan Christian biggies should merge but also that a couple of independent Goan associations in other parts of the Ontario province should join the bandwagon in the form of chapters. There were concerns then as there are now. What would be the name of the new organization? Would it lose the all-important acronym G.O.A, in deference to the non-Goan Christian members of Canorient who then comprised about 2% of that body and were mainly East Indians and Anglo-Indians. Huddles were held and those minorities confirmed that the name issue was not important to them. They were more concerned with full membership and voting entitlement. No objection was seen to that. Then there were rumblings from Canorient's parent body in Montreal. That too quietened down when the strategy of making the Toronto body independent of Montreal was ideated. Meanwhile there were some prominent Canorient members who voluntarily applied for G.O.A. membership in addition to retaining their Canorient status. By that time G.O.A. had acquired a large piece of property on the outskirts of Toronto with various future plan options. The Canorient people wanted G.O.A. to divest itself of that property, bring in the proceeds of the sale into the new merged body and concentrate future plans on the Canorient's own asset. The G.O.A. thought it would have some time to do this, but then deep recession struck. Members were losing jobs, the sale price automatically depressed and would be less than the outstanding mortgage and this plan had to be quickly shelved. The property eventually became a millstone round G.O.A's neck and it would take many years for the club to be fortunate to get a business-minded young banker president to dig the body out of its financial hole aided by the generosity of several members who invested moderately large sums of money to be converted into bonds that would help to sustain the mortgage. It was only in this year and last that the final outstanding bonds were redeemed in full. With this unfortunate set of circumstances playing out, the idea of merger died a natural death. It was not due to opposition from any side, just the economic climate that affected them both. I have given you the G.O.A side of the story in my last article. Now for the Cancorient's. The Canorient comprises not only of the main membership, it also encompasses a senior's club that pays its own dues, part of which goes towards membership of the main body. In that it is different from the G.O.A. where the senior members do not have something of their own within the club and are an undistinguishable part of the whole where having paid membership for some years, they are absolved of future dues on attaining age 65. This automatically reduces the G.O.A.'s membership revenues. Dues are what sustains all 'not-for-profits', along with some government grants. There is a move to change the free-riding. Back to the Canorient's seniors. They are a powerful but not unreasonable old guard of the club. They are not convinced of the need of a merger and need to be presented with a strong business and community case. They feel that the G.O.A. and the Canorient can present a united front for any need of the community without an outright merger. They are by no means a stubborn lot averse to change. A little work can bring them onside. The rest of the club shows no outright opposition at this stage. I find them liberal and more amenable to the idea of the merger than the G.O.A. who to all appearances is the conservative partner in this proposed marriage. I am not judging G.O.A., but I cannot get rid of an intuitive spasm that they are going into this, with full brakes on. When asked about the slowness of their approach, G.O.A. sources say that it is from the necessity to exercise an abundant note of caution about convincing members without upsetting the apple cart, which in this case means shooing some members out the door of an already depleted list. There is a lot more work both clubs can do about getting in new members through some fancy marketing and a little appeal to the Goan Diaspora spirit. For example the Middle-easterners in Toronto are a large but largely ignored lot, left to licking their wounds about the East African domination, real or imagined. Deal with that better than so far done and you will see a spurt in new members. We cannot let history repeat itself and bring in another set of circumstances that puts the merger again on the wayside. For Part 1 see: Goan Voice, 31 Mar. 2014. For Part 2 see Goan Voice 14 Apr 2014].