Deychakiwsky elected president of The Washington Group (06/21/98)

Deychakiwsky elected president of The Washington Group

by Yaro Bihun

WASHINGTON - Orest Deychakiwsky, staff associate at the Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe, has been elected president of The Washington Group (TWG).

TWG, the largest association of Ukrainian American professionals in the United States, is known for its annual conference and the various political and cultural events it sponsors in the nation's capital.

Mr. Deychakiwsky and a new board of directors were elected at TWG's annual meeting here on May 29. Mr. Deychakiwsky replaces George Masiuk, who led the organization over the past three years of its 15-year existence.

Also elected to the board of directors were: Tanya Stasiuk, vice-president; Roman Stelmach, treasurer; Michael Drabyk, secretary; Adrian Pidlusky, membership; Ihor Kotlarchuk, public relations; Laryssa Chopivsky, Cultural Fund director; Adrian Karmazyn, Fellowship Fund director; and eight members-at-large. All board members live in the Washington area, except for Mr. Stelmach, who is branch manager with the Philadelphia Ukrainian Self-reliance Credit Union.

The annual meeting heard mainly positive reports about the state of the organization.

It was another good year, according to Mr. Masiuk, the outgoing president. "TWG staged high-quality events that were well-attended; we took in more money than we spent; we increased our membership by more than 10 percent (to 415); and our 1997 Leadership Conference was successful from an attendance, customer satisfaction and financial point of view," he said.

His successor, Mr. Deychakiwsky, noted in his acceptance speech that in this respect TWG "is somewhat an anomaly" in the Ukrainian American community.

"The sad, but virtually undeniable reality is that the community is steadily declining: organizations are losing membership, some rather rapidly," he said. Many organizations have ceased to exist, including some fellow professionals' organizations, while others have turned into "paper tigers," he added.

"TWG, to its credit, has bucked this trend," he said. "And precisely because the community is diminishing, it becomes all the more important to have a strong, viable organization such as TWG based in the nation's capital," where it "enjoys a solid reputation" within the U.S. government and international relations organizations, and its members have the opportunity "to provide ideas and input to help promote closer U.S.-Ukrainian relations."

As staff associate at the CSCE (popularly known as the Helsinki Commission), Mr. Deychakiwsky's responsibilities include Ukraine, Belarus, Bulgaria and Hungary. He is also the commission's intern coordinator and liaison with non-governmental organizations.

Mr. Deychakiwsky has served as a member of U.S. delegations to numerous meetings of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) in various countries in Europe, and has been an international observer at elections in Ukraine, Russia, Bulgaria and Bosnia.

Earlier he had worked as a project manager at the Republican National Committee and as a consultant for the U.S.-Ukraine Foundation.

In the Ukrainian American community, Mr. Deychakiwsky is a founding member of TWG, serving in various board positions, including as chairman of the Fellowship Fund. He was active in the movement on behalf of human rights in Ukraine and, in the early 1980s, served as a member of the editorial board of the Ukrainian Human Rights Quarterly Smoloskyp. Occasionally, he writes analytical articles on Ukrainian issues for The Ukrainian Weekly and other Ukrainian American newspapers.

Outgoing membership director Michael Drabyk reported that over the past year TWG membership grew from 366 to 415 thanks to an active campaign to get new members and regain those whose membership had expired. He also noted a marked increase, to 34, in the number of student members.

The organization's membership is almost equally divided between those who live in the greater Washington area (D.C., Maryland and Virginia) and those who live in 26 other states, as well as in Canada, Europe (including Ukraine) and Australia.

In addition to its annual Leadership Conference, which in 1997 focused on improving the effectiveness of Ukrainian American organizations, TWG sponsored a number of lectures and panel discussions with U.S. and Ukrainian officials, working in cooperation with such Washington institutions as the Embassy of Ukraine, the Center for Strategic and International Studies, the Johns Hopkins University School for Advanced International Studies and Meridian International House.

On the cultural side, the TWG Cultural Fund was involved in bringing to Washington the Kyiv Chamber Choir, the Ukrainian Bandura Chorus, fiddler-mandolinist Peter Ostroushko, the winners of the Horowitz International Young Pianists Competition and Olenka Pevny of The Metropolitan Museum, who spoke about the "Glory of Byzantium" exhibition at the Met.

Through its Fellowship Fund, TWG this year is sponsoring its third annual summer internship at the Embassy of Ukraine in Washington.

The annual meeting approved a number of changes in TWG's by-laws. Noteworthy among them: dropping the requirement that a member or his/her spouse be of Ukrainian descent. The member must, however, "support and promote the goals of TWG," which strive "to establish a professional and business network of Ukrainian Americans to promote closer ties and contacts, strive to eliminate discrimination and prejudice aimed at Ukrainian Americans, promote close U.S.-Ukrainian relations, encourage the development of a pluralistic and democratic Ukraine, promote a greater understanding of Ukrainian history and culture in American society, and encourage active participation of Ukrainian Americans in promoting the welfare of the community."

The amended by-laws now allow for corporate membership, in addition to full, associate, student and honorary.