In the Company of several distinguished and illustrious Past Presidents’ who served the Association with distinction in preceding years, the President of the Association Mrs. Dharani Karunaratne inaugurated the 50th Annual General Meeting of the Association at the Ramada Hotel on Friday 18th June 2010 at 6.00 P. M.

After the National Anthem and traditional lighting of the oil lamp by dignitaries, the milestone event was signified by the cutting of the Golden Jubilee cake by the Past Presidents present, along with the current President, after which the Annual General Meeting was called to order.

The President outlined the programme of work undertaken and carried out by the Executive Committee during the closed year, mentioning that the high point for the year was the ‘Collate 2010’ cluster of events encompassing the Print competition/exhibition, trade exhibition and of course the glittering awards night which was held in February 2010. She noted that the trade exhibition this time around had been the best ever, and that the Association was able to generate valuable funding for it’s activities through generous sponsorships, and also appreciable participation by the supplier base both local and foreign, in the trade exhibition.

She noted that on a pledge given by her last year , the sub committee entrusted with education & training had arranged 3 important seminars in Colombo, and upto 5 in the outstations in conjunction with a membership drive. She however noted that while the outstation programmes were well attended, the Colombo seminars which proved to be on excellent subject matter were very poorly subscribed to, even though subsidized by the Association.

She added that a recent feedback campaign to seek member views on training subject matter had yielded only 20 responses to almost 400 requests sent out.

She appealed to Chief Executives of the membership to be aware that the endeavour of the Association was to foster a better educated and professionally equipped work force in the industry, and to support the efforts of the education & training sub committee by registering more participants to technical and allied seminars and programmes facilitated by them.

The President during her address also referred to the upgrading of it’s periodic publication “Srilankaprint” which she said during the year had seen a marked improvement in content, as well as layout and overall quality.

It was stated that the membership drive programmes had yielded 55 new memberships during the period in review, and 19 new life memberships.

Mrs. Karunaratne briefly also referred to the building project just launched, to acquire land, and to construct the Associations own abode, initial plans of which were progressing well, she added.

In conclusion the President thanked the respective Committee Chairmen and sub committees for their efforts and inputs during the year, which she said had made many a challenge look relatively easy to confront. She also extended a special word of thanks to the outgoing Secretary who had performed an excellent job over the preceding year.

She also thanked the Past Presidents for their valuable advise and support during the year concluded.