Veken Gueyikian – new head of New York based Armenian gay rights group

It was confirmed today that Veken Gueyikian was elected as the new president of the Armenian Gay & Lesbian Association of New York (AGLA NY). For the past year he was serving as the vice-president of the Association. Congrats, Veken!

In his letter announcing Veken Gueyikian’s appointment, now former AGLA NY president Christopher Atamian calls for volunteers to contact AGLA NY and be part of the team. He also reaffirmed previously announced but postponed plans to host a spring conference next year on LGBT rights in the Caucasus. Details of the conference are yet to be announced.

Dear AGLA NY Members and friends,

It is my pleasure to welcome Veken Gueyikian as the new President of AGLANY. Veken is an intelligent, energetic and dedicated professional who served as Vice President for the past year, and without whom we could not have accomplished all that we did. We are looking for a few interested and energetic individuals to work with Veken in the coming year as a member of our organization. Please email Veken through this form if you are interested in volunteering.

I would also like to take the opportunity to thank everyone for their support and help over the past two years that I have had the honor of serving as AGLA NY President. [...]

In the coming year, we have many fun and novel events planned, including a winter benefit to raise funds for the organization and a spring conference on LGBT rights in the Caucasus.[...]

As to the present plans of Chris, who will remain a member of the Board of Directors of AGLA NY, he just set up a website with his former classmate Anita Itty - http://www.ecognoscente.com. It's a free daily e-mail – “literally a Daily Candy meets The New Yorker”, as they describe it, with the writings on art, architecture, literature, design, film, fashion, music, theatre and food.

It’s good to know that there are Armenian organisations where former president congratulates newly elected one. It is also reassuring that unlike (sadly!) closed down AGLA France, there are people within our NY group willing to take over the job so that the organisation will function and move forward.

I personally know Veken, met him few months ago. Very nice guy, friendly, dedicated, and I am confident he will be a good head of our NY based Armenian gay rights group. His partner Hrag Vartanian, one of my favourite Armenian bloggers, writes extensively about modern/contemporary and street art and current issues at http://hragvartanian.com. Veken keeps a personal blog too at http://veken.org, along with managing AGLA NY blog. Btw, as I noticed, AGLA NY website and their blog on 'wordpress' are now merged into single domain http://aglany.org.

Again, my congratulations to Veken!