Annie Rokneh appointed the 1st Chief Coordinator of the Diocesan CWA

The First Diocesan Catholic Women's Apostolate line up.

Sandakan : The Catholic Women’s Apostolate of the Diocese of Sandakan was officially established on Saturday, 5^th September 2009 with Annie Rokneh from St Mary’s Cathedral appointed as its first Chief Coordinator.

Meeting in progress.

The meeting was attended by 12 lay members, with 3 representatives from each parish who are currently the CWA parish coordinator, secretary and one other appointed by the parish priest. Sr Appolonia Gumpu fsic was assigned the role as Spiritual Adviser to the Apostolate. The term of office shall be 2 years and members are eligible for reappointment for another term however they shall not serve more than two terms consecutively.

Bishop Julius Dusin Gitom presided the inaugural meeting where he extended his appreciation to all members who had made tremendous sacrifices and placed priority to attend the meeting. He urged members not just to obey and participate but to seek and recognize Christ in all activities of the Apostolate. He was happy to note that the proposed guideline projects its own identity and not merely duplicating from other sources. Among the objectives were to be true Christian women, wives, mothers and home-makers before anything else and to involve and contribute to the growth and well being of BEC in the neighborhood community.

The line-up of the Diocesan Women’s Apostolate for the year 2009 ~ 2011;

• Chief Coordinator - Annie Rokneh (St Mary’s Cathedral, Sandakan)
• V Chief Coordinator - Evelyn Watson (St Dominic’s Church, Lahad Datu)
• Secretary - Cecilia D Souza (St Mary’s Cathedral, Sandakan)
• Asst Secretary - Hilda Laurencius (St Mary’s Cathedral, Sandakan)
• Treasurer - Patricia Kuit (Holy Trinity Church, Tawau)
• Asst Treasurer - Nora Nicholas (St Martin’s Church, Telupid)
• Committee - Victoria Salati (St Martin’s Church, Telupid)
• Committee - Arina Anggatis (St Martin’s Church, Telupid)
• Committee - Nora Gabriel (Holy Trinity Church, Tawau)
• Committee - Teresita Ortiz (Holy Trinity Church, Tawau)
• Committee - Mariana Dosis (St Dominic’s Church, Lahad Datu)
• Committee - Roslinda Praser (St Dominic’s Church, Lahad Datu)
• Spiritual Adviser - Sr Appolonia fsic (St Mary’s Convent, Sandakan)

The members had an opportunity to have an insight to the statistic on membership, the number of established CWAs, activities, their strength and weaknesses through a power point presentation.

The CWA will meet on 24^th October 2009 to further discuss on the upcoming Retreat and the Annual Assembly scheduled on 19^th – 21^st November in Holy Trinity Church Tawau. They will take into account the strength and weaknesses of CWA to work out and plan their annual activities for the year 2010.

By DS