He started out on Sunday mornings placing flyers on car windshields while people were inside the churches of Watertown praying.
Today, Tatoul Badalian is a veritable town crier for the Armenian people with his website called MENK and his cultural promotions for the Amaras Art Alliance.
Keeping track of dozens of Armenian activities and passing them along to a readership of thousands is no small task, but Badalian seems to be handling it with a deep-rooted sense of commitment.
Credit Hamazkayin as well with sponsoring the project as a community service. The program has been running since 2001, both as an online calendar of events and an email service.
“Volunteer work has always excited me and I’ve been involved with it ever since my high school days,” he tells us. “In the 1980’s, we were raising children so I was not as involved. When I went back in the 90’s, things had changed.”
Badalian threw himself into the Armenian mainstream. He rejoined the Hamazkayin Educational and Cultural Society and various other Armenian outlets which seemingly doubled, even tripled.
“Every time we planned an event, there seemed to be a conflict,” he observed. “Someone else was also having a dance or some other program. It was essential for us to think of ways to keep everyone informed of our plans and try to figure out who was doing what.”
In an age when social calendars are yearning to breathe free, Badalian’s MENK represents a breath of fresh air.
On any given week, his calendar might run 12 pages, containing everything from the latest exhibits at ALMA to church bazaars, art workshops, lectures, films, school programs, picnics, musical venues, and children’s concerts.
There’s an invitation to join other email groups like the Sayat Nova Dance Company and Armenian Dramatic Art Alliance. Or how about teachers and tutors, be it music or math or private ballroom dancing?
I did not know there was a Hye Café at St. James Church. I do now. Or that the Society for Orphaned Armenian Relief was having an evening of cultural music, food, and wine in Dedham.
It’s all there, big and bold, categorized by date and all the essential details. You might find some of these in the local Armenian media but MENK appears to be the biggest, all-inclusive resource for the electronic crowd which is escalating these days.
Web pages are growing into a rage and readers are transitioning. That’s not to say newspapers will soon become like dinosaurs. I disdain such a thought given my life’s work. But it seems inevitable.
So modest is Badalian about his efforts, he’d rather remain in the background and focus instead on Hamazkayin and the projects he’s inculcated. Personally, he concocted two web pages for me in promoting my photography of Armenia. I didn’t solicit his services. He volunteered them.
On www.AmarasOnline.com, Badalian has created several directories such as Community Classifieds to complement his calendar.
He smiles about those fledgling days of covering windshields, sometimes to the irritation of motorists who felt it was nothing more than clutter to be discarded before taking notice.
Soon, he had so many flyers in hand, he figured a more appropriate way of getting the word out—creating an online calendar and posting information from these flyers.
“At the same time, I was also collecting email addresses of people who were involved in organizing these events,” he recalled. “My thought was to keep these organizers informed through the online calendar.”
As a result, two things occurred. First, his target audience was not checking the calendar on a regular basis. Second, people outside the organizing circle became interested in the calendar.
Before he knew it, the list had grown to over 500 and everybody got sent these weekly emails. If you could use some free publicity, the online address is http://plus.calendars.netMENK.
The email part is a list of all events people submit, which Badalian formats a bit to make it all uniform. It goes out on Wednesday nights to organizations and the community-at-large.
Badalian also makes available his personal email address (tbadalian@aol.com) because it lets him respond quickly to requests and questions.
“Over time, we have added a few extras mostly by the suggestion of our community,” he notes. “These include an announcement section, links to venues and organizations, and a place to upload event flyers. The latter is in an evolutionary phase at this time.”
Badalian goes on to say how these two tools—MENK and AmarasOnline—are flexible and can be expanded to meet the needs of an ever-growing community.
Tom Vartabedian
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Tatul is the man.
What a wonderful job shining light on a modest person who would never take a spotlight himself. Thank you! Tatul is a great individual – the unsung hero of this community. All the organizations, including ALMA, benefit gratly from having MENK .