This is history as I know it:
Goan Archives Project (GAP) became...
-- Goan Archives Canada Inc. A registered non-profit. They did projects
including:
1) Created a Board of Directors. Sadly with no bylaws or elections
2) Be part of the Objects of Memory evening with PAMA (Peel Art Gallery,
Museum and Archives)
3) Collected fund donations and items from the community, and had an
accessions afternoon where volunteers indexed as catalogued many of the
items
4) Catalogued and donated a subset of the items collected (12 boxes) to
PAMA
6) Attended one of PAMA's Family Day celebrations as volunteers
7) Created a printed Report to the Community (I)
8) Tried to solicit funds from the clubs which, due to mishandling of
the meetings, ended up in a diplomatic disaster
9) The group had internal fights to the point of break-up (re: release
and format translation of archive material, namely videos of Convention
1988 held by one of the Directors)
10) Went dormant for 5-6 years with no meetings, while still filing
year-end statements
11) JJD filed second printed Report to the Community (II) to use some of
the funds which had remained untouched (printing was done at minimal
cost as one of the directors was involve in the printing trade)
editorial work was done largely independently by JJD
12) JJD created a side-show about 1-2 years later... presented this to
the GGG (Goan Cultural Group at Sq1, the predecessor of the Active Goan
Adults and I believe he may of did with the GTA55Plus too)
13) After meeting via my Book Stall, JJD and MP independently encouraged
me to develop a Strategic Plan for the Archives (at this point I had no
idea of the organizations history. And slowly through my conversations
the story came out). After research, writing, and revision, I developed
a document: Goan Archives of Canada Inc. The Road Ahead
14) I had a presentation of the Road Ahead Plan with select members of
the Executive Team at the GCG. At this meeting they asked for additions
to the plan. This was pressing period as I was told, 2-3 Directors had
close to terminal illness (...at the time JJD was not on this list)
15) I had a second presentation of the Road Ahead Plan with the
Executive Team at MP's House. All the Directors were invited, only two
attended, JJD and the President.
16) In the summer of that year, I suggested a lunch meeting for the
Directors. Most attended. I suggested, since the group had not met for
now for 7-plus years, they had not held elections, had not worked on
projects, and were not talking, and that they set up a Interim Board to
transition the organization. They asked me for names. I spend time
making calls to the broader Goan Community and collecting names. I also
spoke to PAMA, without details, and visited the 12-box collection for
the first time (...good God, I was sadly disappointed. The collection
was disjointed and filled with vernacular material and ephemera. I was
expecting so much more!)
17) I was invited to a Goan Archives of Canada Inc. Board meeting in
Scarborough. As the Executive was indicating that the wanted a next
step, I assumed this would be a meeting to transition to a Temp Board.
At this meeting, after some discussion, the Board lead by the President,
officially voted to shut the organization down. The Resolution says
something like: '...since the Goan Community has no interest in this
organization, we are shutting it down.' I have a written record of the
minutes (I publicly audio-taped the meeting for archival purposes and
due to the fact that some of the people at the table including MP were
hard of hearing. JJD taped the event too). I have also have photo of the
resolution and vote. JJD was the only dissenting vote (ie NO to shutting
down). The decision was made well before Directors entered the room. I
found out later that all the Directors were largely friends since high
school and they remained lifelong chums. I got the impression that, they
had no concept of what a non-profit organization is and why and Archive
is important for a Community. It was their personal project and maybe
mostly JJD's project
-- Goa Book Stall
1) I have been importing and selling books from Goa, largely from the
publisher Goa1556. My stall is set up at community events, Viva Goa,
Taste of Konkan, WestEnd Seniors, GCG, TEGSA. over the last 5-6 years.
This is largely where I got to know JJD and learned about the Archives
Organization. I had no idea they existed. As some point he passed me
documents and the reports and asked me to make and an assessment.
2) JJD was at every event and spent much time at the stall. This was
good for me, as the work is a 12-hour day and having someone cover even
for a short time was a welcome relief. Pee don't wait. Over the course
of the many events we had long and great conversations. I had lots of
questions about the British East Africa and his early days in England.
3) This is also where I met MP (Maurice Pinto). MP was instrumental in
getting the Goan Archives Canada last few Board meetings going. He was
not a Board Member and he was not well at the time. He wanted me to
carry and sell the Reports (I and II) the Archives had printed. I broke
it to him, no one is going to be paying for report.
4) MP spent lots of time to convince me to help the Archive Team and
then sent me copies of his personal biography and an extra copy of a
book on African Goan to convince me that there was some depth to the
community. I e-mailed the draft plan I had created as an part of the
assessment. He then got the Board to meet to start the process moving
again (they had not for 5-7 years. Above).
-- Goan Cultural Archives
1) JJD continued with his work for the next 2-3 years until this
untimely passing. He started writing few short reports. He called this
the Goan Cultural Archives. The project names were confusing, maybe
purposefully so on his part.
2) He also presented his work in progress at, the Taste of Konkan 2018,
30-Anniversary of the Convention Event, and a the Professors Talk at Sq1
3) For the last year or two he told me he is re-organizing his documents
and his collection
4) I sent him a list of the stuff I have (largely earlier Canorient
stuff). I was the publisher of the Canorient Contact for 7-years and
have all the issues I published)...I showed him early interviews of
author BA, and photos of the national conventions, etc. Of course, I was
a kid then and only kept minimal stuff
-- Goan Voice Canada
1) I helped JJD collect a Digital Archive (scrape) of this own
goanvoice.ca as he was having a huge fight with the people in Goa to get
his material back
2) I was shocked to hear he later decided to shut this effort down. I
told him was the very kind of thing he should be doing, as its easy once
per week stuff. It’s perfect for a retired man. It would be easy if did
not use the long convoluted process of depending on Goa
-- GCG (Goan Cultural Group)
1) After our initial meeting, JJD invited me to attend numerous events
at the Goan Cultural Group (GCG) that included Goan content including:
Goan Authors reading (3), Goan Professor visits (2), Konkani Class (2),
Goan Pilgrimage (1), many many more etc. I him sent photos for this
collection.
2) When the GCG decided to drop the 'Goan Cultural' past of their
mandate and name and become the 'Active Goan Adults' ...we never talked
about this, but I think the shift in direction must of been a bit of a
blow...
3) Beta Project: We did one Project of as a test of oral history
exercise. This work later appeared on goaculturelist.ca. JJD, JR, and I
recorded an interview of two GCG Members, WM and AV. The object of the
exercise was to test the team’s ability to capture oral history in a
systematic and professional manner. Background work included, research
interviews, editing questions, photos day of event, interview, editing,
etc. We had lots of fun doing this
4) We were taking about the oral history interview session at least for
6-9 months before it happened. It was majorly frustrating. I then
created a fully designed page with Draft Goan Archives of Canada logo to
show the quality of work that should be done. The point to JJD was:
'Content without design' is as bad as, 'design without content.' Both
need to be done if he wanted people, specialty young people, to widely
accept the work he was trying to do.
5) JJD asked to retake an interview with RB who missed the first
session. This was done a year later and the interview will be published
soon. JJD had found a new copy of the minutes of the first GOA Toronto
meeting...the session started from there. I have photos and audio tape.
JJD has duplicates.
-- goaculturelist.ca
1) I created goaculturelist.ca as a kind of mock up of the kind of work
that JJD could be doing. JJD got me hooked to write more. I was largely
a designer, but during this time was hired freelance by the Malton
Compass Newspaper, run by the Malton BIA (Business Improvement
Association) to create content. I now publish articles about the
community when on the site at a leisurely pace. The discipline has
improved my writing.
2) goaculturelist.ca really largely created in the process of me testing
CMS (content management systems). As a designer, I was and continue to
test Drupal, WordPress, and Joomla. I have have clients that are running
WordPress. If a client wants a new feature, I install it on
goaculturelist and then test it well before making recommendations.
Features like, content directories, calendars, google apls, etc, are all
tested here.
3) I actually now find it fun to add create and content. It would not of
happen if JJD did not inspire me to do it and develop these skills
-- Email and Coffee Shop Conversations
1) JJD sent me 645 e-mails between 2014 and March 2019. I just counted.
I replied to almost all. Few years ago, during the winter, when he found
out I write material or code after supper in a Brampton Coffee Shop
(THs) he decided to drop in on a regular basis
2) He was intrigued that I was all of the following: a past Museum Board
Director, Director of Volunteers, Museum Marketing Committee chair,
studied museum and non-profit development, studied communication design
and art history, was a graphic designer, web designer, photographer
(Nikon), read books about Goa, was on GoaNet since day one, published
the Contact for the Canorient, knew much of the history of the Goan
community in Canada, project managed large events, wrote strategic
plans, and marketing plans for companies, crafted grant proposals, wrote
for the local newspaper and marketing material, was on the advisory
committee of a community development project...and ran a Business
Incubator for a number of years. He had lots of questions about IT,
publishing software, video and audio recording, servers, etc.
I was very interest to learn about JJD's take on Goan history and our
development and progress in Canada, and why he had the great interest in
activity of the archivist. 'People are entitled to opinion. They even
have the right to change their opinion,' he would say, 'But they are not
entitled to versions of facts.
I would reply, 'Facts, our facts, are a good and solid foundation for
community development.'
---
I have not covered in these notes the following specific projects over
the last few years that that directly relate to the JJD's Archives
Initiative:
-- Organization meetings for the Seniors Town Hall Meeting (4)
-- Seniors Town Hall Meeting (at Meadowvale Community Centre) (full
afternoon)
-- Canada 150 Project. Grant meetings with GTA55Plus (1)
-- Invitation of authors who wrote novels immersed in Goan history (3)
-- Konkan Evott (4-meetings, VA as team leader. Project dissipated)
-- 30 Anniversary of Goan Convention 1988 (GOA Event)
-- Documentation of Konkani Rosary Project (With Winnipeg and VD in
Mississauga)
-- Presentation of Community Origins Binder to St Augustine Fathers at
Shrine at Marylake (with JR in King City)
-- Development of Creative Writing Workshop for Seniors (10-week course
outline developed. Marketing material and electronic registration
published. 5-people registered)
-- Creative Drawing Instruction. (We did a memory drawing project with
the GCG Seniors. It was well received)
-- Planned interview of Msr T D'Souza (Faded too quickly. MR did get an
interview, but it was not on tape)
-- Restart of Toronto Goan Literary Society (proposal)
Each would require a list like above. I have the details in my notes.
----
Challenge:
There is a pressing need to build an institution in Canada that will
solely focus on keeping collections of Goan Community Information alive
and accessible for future generations (...Let me give you a single and
immediate example, the 300 radio shows from Toronto's Radio Mango will
soon be lost forever)
I'm fully prepared to follow through on the Road Ahead Plan, restart the
organization, complete down to the finance, operations, marketing and
organization development, and make it happen...it’s something I do.
ANYBODY open to doing this or any other Community Development Project
please feel free to contact me directly...
In the long history of humankind and animal kind too, those who learned
to collaborate and improvise most effectively have prevailed, said
Charles Darwin
Nature abhors a vacuum.
Step up to the challenge.
----
I wrote previously:
He parked himself at my Goan Books Stall at community events and we had
hours long chats...His hobby was learning and reading. He struggled to
comprehend some of the smallness he found. He inspired me to do more
research, to write and pick up documentary skills...
I will add:
JJD worked hard. He put construction above destruction. For all his
small faults, he was a good guy at heart. And I'm glad to have had him
as a friend.
Albert Peres
afpe...@3129.ca
416.660.0847 cell
--- On 27/03/2019 2:21 p.m., Eugene Correia wrote: ---
>The photo may be of the time when the Goan Archives Project (GAP) was
launched in 2007. GAP became GAC (Goan Archives Canada). It seems now
there's no gap but vacuum...
>
>
> Sent from my iPad
>
