Welcome back message from Lester

I would like to extend a very, very warm welcome to all those members who were away. To those who were right here, thanks for holding the fort. I was down in Durban for the festive season and I normally have an awesome time but this time things did not go exactly as I had hoped. Nonetheless, I am back in the city of gold, armed with all the energy and drive to tackle the year that the dawn of a new year usually brings. Hopefully it lasts a lot longer this time. The year started with a bit…okay a lot of bad luck but being the eternal optimist, things can only get better and I just need to utilize it to my advantage.

At Bruinou.com, we managed to set some time aside to strategise. With each of us in different cities and all with different plans for the festive season, the task was always going to be a lot more daunting than it seemed. We managed to spend some time together though and although it was not nearly as much as we had hoped, we managed to discuss a few key things and put a few plans in place for the New Year.

High on the list of priorities was the Bruin Pages business database. I think that people are under-estimating the power and the importance that something like this holds. We will be pushing even harder in the marketing of this concept for next year as this promises to be a most useful tool to both business person and end user and will be the catalyst for growing and sharing business within our communities. We will also be taking a long, hard look at events in its current form. Many of you will be pleased to know that we will be having less club events and more comedy, live entertainment and family oriented ones.

We will also be focusing a lot on social responsibility and will be more actively involved in schools, universities and community based charity organizations. We have spoken to a few people regarding this and we hope to come to an agreement where we can get this off the ground soon. We have said many times before that we are a small team and rely on the support of many individuals within the community to achieve some of our objectives and we have had a fairly decent response to date. We urge people to come forward from all parts of the country and globe to assist in the growth in your side of the world.

I do not want to give too much away but know that there are many other initiatives that we have planned for the year and we are really excited about the challenges ahead. We enter the New Year with loads of optimism and a team who are fully charged to tackle all the challenges that the year may bring. With your unwavering support, we are positive that this is going to be another landmark year for Bruinou.com. We wish all of our members the very best for the New Year. Know that this year is going to be no different from the last if we sit waiting for people to do things for us; we need to do things for ourselves. We need to be more pro-active and leave that ugly thing called procrastination aside. Grab the year by the horns and take control from the very start. 2007 is going to be the best yet.