Glad to learn that our alumni are safe, and we thank all alumni and friends who cared about us. We have been communicating by personal emails and through our internal email network, but our alumni in other parts of the world may also want to know the situation. So I prepare this brief summary.

1. Ike gave us more trouble than we initially thought. It turned out to be the third most costly in terms of damage in US history. Personally, we had roof damage, wet carpet, and had three days without electricity and more than a week without stable phone/internet service. We cooked on the camping stove. But I gradually realized how lucky my family were compared to fellow Houstonians and some alumni. Jizhong, our President-Elect, got power back after 2 weeks!

2. We are getting back to normal, most went back to work after a week, even when they still have no electricity at home. Folks in Galveston had more trouble and the island was open only a week ago.

3. Many alumni helped each other: Liping hosted 6 people from Clear Lake, plus 1 international student. Jiahuang also offered people to stay before Hurricane. Many others are sharing Hurricane recovery tips. I compiled some and put it here: http://www.ywpw.com/forums/garden/post/A0/p0/html/130.html

Now the annual meeting:

Due to the time constraint, we will skip the board meeting prior to the annual meeting. Instead we will send emails among board members to prepare for the annual meeting. We will have the meeting at the end of October or early November, either in a park in Katy or go back to the same place as last year (Memorial Park). Xiangqian (Tony) is investigating the Katy location and we will soon have an answer.

Nomination of next President-Elect:

As per By law, Jizhong will be the nominated for the next President. The next President-Elect, per convention, will be chosen mainly among the old Hua Gong folks. We have many talents, please nominate one or two whom you think are best qualified for this position, including yourself.

Web site re-design:

There is no doubt that our web site needs a fresh look! I have entrusted Tony for the task, and finally he came up with several templates. Please take a look and decide which one you like the best. We can then settle on one design. The URL is http://www.hust.org/houston/new_design/

National Day Gala:

Yidao Cai attended the gala held on Sunday Sept. 28 at Sugarland Marriot, representing HUSTAA. Jiahuang and Jiahua also attended/volunteered but representing Zhiqing.

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