ClubDA SCHOLARSHIPS 2011/12 - Diplomatic Academy Vienna

EDITORIAL
3
Dear fellow Alumnae and Alumni!
“Money makes the world go round” claims
Joel Grey in the award winning movie Cabaret,
portraying the frivolous Twenties in Berlin, New
York or Paris.
Privileged party people dancing the night away
while economic and totalitarian threats are looming
only a few months away.
A picture also painted by more pessimist fellow
alumni for our times, foreseeing civil unrest after
more economic calamities followed by hyper
inflation.
But let’s not believe too much in this gloomy
scenario.
One thing is yet for sure: Lots of money in one
form or the other will be needed to help refinance
and jump start destitute economies like
Greece to a slow economic recovery, steering
Europe and its Union back to calmer waters.
Money is also one way we, as ClubDA, can help
some talented students to co-finance their way
through the Diplomatic Academy.
I am proud that I can, on your behalf, hand two
scholarships to two deserving students. It is yet
a smaller sum that can be granted, but I am positive
that in a few years ClubDA will be able to
increase its financial support due to an already
improving payment morale of our membership.
2011 has brought the ClubDA family up to 14
chapters. Prague, Warsaw and Zagreb Chapters
were founded and joined us with great energy.
The co-chapter Geneva/Zurich is on the way
to be started giving “home and anchor” to our
alumni in Switzerland.
After that, chapter growth will come to a halt.
It will be our endeavour for the coming months
to strengthen the existing chapters and to keep
them going after the founding “enthusiasm”.
2011 was also the year in which ClubDA has
for the first time excluded 76 members for not
paying their contribution for some years and
members we have lost contact to over a longer
period of time.
Let us see this seemingly drastic action as the
trimming of a tree in winter to support further
growth in spring.
I am very much looking forward to our activities
this spring and summer featuring especially our
Austro-Hungarian Neusiedler See bicycle trip
taking us all around the lake – stopping only for
wine, food and culture.
Mag. Oliver Kitz is President of ClubDA.