Macedonian Herald - United Macedonians Organization of Canada

In the Beginning

The Macedonian community before 1959, was divided predominantly into two groups; those who accepted an MPO dominated Bulgarian Macedonian Orthodox Church, and the left dominated, Macedonian Peoples League. Other than these two, there were very few organizations available where Macedonians could assert their inherited identity. Anti communist governmental hysteria plus an ideological split within the Macedonian Peoples League resulted in many leaving the cultural centre on Ontario Street (Toronto) and those refusing acceptance of a Bulgarian oriented MPO, were denied their identity, a place to assemble and a church to worship in as Macedonians. Amoung them were; Jim Saunders, Spiro Bassil, Bill Clatsoff, Don Pappas, Pando Papaliya, Mike Tallin, Chris Vasil, Bill Dundas, Don George, Simo Temovski, Anton Palmeroff, naming just a few, who assembled in 1959 to start an organization which was democratic and not political or religious. Identified as the United Macedonians they organized their first Ilinden Picnic, at which more than 3000 attended.

The first meetings I attended were in a vacant office owned by Spiro Basil, above the Dupont Coffee Shop. After being coerced by my father-in-law into joining, I was immediately nominated/elected as the new managing director and secretary, joining Jim Saunders, Don Pappas etc as an executive member. While Jim Saunders was President, Chris Tzavela (an excellent speaker in Macedonian) became our primary spokes person to the community, reading announcements prepared by either Don Pappas or Spiro Bassil . My primary duties were to; find and arrange for meeting places, prepare the agenda, chair meetings jointly with the president and to represent the United Macedonians and our ethnic community in general, to the general public, press and the mass media.

In 1960, the Committee formalize the organization with the name, the United Canadian Macedonian Committee, drafted a constitution, initiated the formalization of a symbol and a flag, and initiated the continuation of the Annual Ilinden picnic.

Although there was a tentative name used by the founding committee in 1959, it was not formalized until 1960 when several alternatives were presented and the United Macedonian Canadian Committee chosen as the official name for the organization. As we could not continue democratically as a viable organization without a proper constitution and by-laws, it was decided to present our founding principles and incorporate them into a formal document. I was asked to prepare such a document and draft a constitution that was consistent with Canadian Law. Using the material that I had accumulated from past minutes I initiated a statement of purpose and intent and drafted a proposed constitution. This followed after many meetings, discussion, changes and finally approval, translated into Macedonian.

Following the initial success of the first Ilinden Picnic, planning immediately began for the succeeding picnics at the Macedonian Village and three others at Bill Shields Park, (north of highway 7 on Woodbine Avenue).

Pete James Kondoff
Next - The Ilinden Picnic, “MPO and the Pan-Macedonians”

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