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Dr. Penguin is a big hit at PCEC meeting
Pick a card, any card. Dr.
Penguin asks members of the PCEC audience to pick a card from an imaginary
deck and announce what it was. Later, using a real deck, he showed that all
cards were face down except the ones that the members had “pulled” from the
imaginary deck.
Think twice before accepting an invitation from Dr.
Penguin to participate in a poker game. Dr. Penguin - magician, comedian,
musician, actor, presenter, emcee, charity worker and artist - informed and
amused the Pattaya City Expats Club members and guests at their Sunday,
September 21, meeting.
Dr. Penguin entertained his audience with a few card tricks. There was one
particularly dazzling trick, where he passed around an imaginary deck of
cards for a few members of the audience to take an imaginary card from the
deck and call out the card they picked. He then produced a real card deck
with all the cards face down except face up in the deck were the exact cards
that members of the audience had “pulled” from the imaginary deck. Dr.
Penguin quipped, “We have poker games every Thursday, if you are interested;
bring lots of money.”
Dr. Penguin explains his
charity swimming event upcoming in late December and invites everyone to
attend for some fun while raising money for charity.
He then talked about his recent trip to Mexico and
southern California. He saw a number of magicians perform, including one of
the best, Richard Turner, who happens to be blind. Dr. Penguin had met
Richard before but had not seen him for 25 years. Mutual friends invited Dr.
Penguin to attend a show he was giving and to pretend to be someone else,
but Dr. Penguin said that Richard knew right away who it was, just by the
sound of Dr. Penguin’s voice. A documentary on Richard Turner is being made
now and is expected to be available in 2015. (For more information, see
www.youtube.com/watch?v=7A6vSAW0BEs.)
Dr. Penguin recounted an experience he had in 1989 when he was putting
together the Wild West Show for Safari World in Bangkok. Here’s the story,
condensed from a description Dr. Penguin posted on his “Doc Penguino”
Facebook page:
“We brought in really top notch Hollywood stunt guys who did the Hollywood
western shoot out and cowboy tricks. One part of my job was to design and
build the Wild West set. It was a great design with all kinds of trap doors
and secret entrances, so an actor could jump in a well and come back out of
a barrel spitting water! …
What is that creature Dr.
Penguin pulled out of MC Richard Silverberg’s ear as Richard was presenting
him with the PCEC’s Certificate of Appreciation for his entertaining
presentation to the Club?
“I hired a nice painter, Somchai, who had painted my
house… I briefed him on the set, gave him copies of the design layouts, even
gave him a VHS of the Magnificent Seven, and told to be creative! …
“Only thing was I had to fly to Hong Kong for three days. But Somchai had
been well briefed and knew what to do, so what could go wrong?
“Upon my return I couldn’t help noticing staff at Safari World were laughing
when they saw me entering the park… The owner of the park asked me if I’d
seen the set yet and I said no, he then accompanied me into the arena, and
there before me stood the Wild West town set, all painted in shades of hot
pink! I asked Somchai why he painted everything hot pink and he said he
thought it looked nice! I informed him he’d have to repaint the whole thing
and smiled the rest of the day, avoiding questions.”
Dr. Penguin also spoke about a project he is working on. He was contracted
by the French producer Jean Chalopin to do a pilot for a possible TV series,
shot in the style of silent movies. The shooting was done in Belgium and
Pattaya. In the pilot, which Dr. Penguin showed on the video screen for the
audience, the character he plays gets very excited about some of the
well-endowed female characters in the skit. Dr. Penguin said that on his
recent trip that he was told the project will continue, but without the
erotic element as the new producer wants to make it more family oriented.
Les Edmonds announces to PCEC
members and guests that he has tickets available for the upcoming Pattaya
Classical Music’s next sponsored concert at the Siam Bayshore Pattaya on
October 26 featuring the Desford Colliery Brass Band.
In concluding his presentation, Dr. Penguin mentioned
that he is involved in a charity event that is being planned for Pattaya in
late December. The event is called the “Thailand Long Distance Ocean Swim
Charity Challenge 2014.” The idea is that women long-distance swimmers from
New Jersey, known as “the Mermaids,” will swim from Pattaya Beach to Koh
Larn and back again, a distance of 20 kilometres. The event will help
promote swimming and boating safety in Pattaya.
The Mermaids who will participate in the event are Nancy Steadman-Martin,
who swam the English Channel in 2004, and Michelle Davidson, who has
completed long-distance swimming Triple Crown: the English Channel,
Manhattan Island and Catalina Channel. All of the women who will be
participating are at least 60 years of age.
Dr. Penguin said that he will be putting together a “magic circus” so that
while the swimmers are doing their thing, we should be expecting wet magic,
wet juggling, floating balloon animals, wet mime and more.
Dr. Penguin has presented at the Pattaya City Expats Club on several
occasions. You can follow him on his Facebook page at www.
facebook.com/doc.penguino.
Master of Ceremonies Richard Silverberg then brought everyone up to date on
upcoming events and called on Roy Albiston to conduct the always informative
Open Forum where questions are asked and answered about Expat living in
Thailand, especially Pattaya.
For more information on the PCEC’s many activities, visit their website at
www.pcecclub.org.
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St. Nikolas church marks
48 years with festival
Group picture of the new church
council with the bishop in the foreground.
Elfi Seitz
St. Nikolas church marked its 48th anniversary Sept. 14 with their
annual parish festival.
Bishop Silvio Siripong Charatsri from Chantaburi celebrated mass before swearing
in the newly elected, 54-person parish council led by Premprecha Dibbayawan.
A festive parade around the church grounds gave the festival an international
and colorful touch since many parishioners dressed in their national costumes.
Booths invited the visitors to eat and drink as much as they wanted and the
hundreds of people who came during the day celebrated happily.
The bishop, priests and a few dignitaries from Pattaya, including Roman Catholic
Deputy Mayor Ronakit Ekasingh, had lunch at the Dorothy Hall.
St. Nikolas church was founded by Swiss national Walter Leo Meyer and his wife
in 1966 on land they donated. In 1976, the church was completed and was named St
Nikolas to honor the great Swiss saint Nikolas de Flue.
In 1987 the church was extended - again through the sponsorship of Meyer - with
a multipurpose building: Dorothy Hall.
The land for the adjacent cemetery was again given by Meyer and his wife.
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Growling Swan and Pattaya Sports Club help Khao Bi Sri
The walkers arrive.
William Macey
It is for the benefit of the handicapped and underprivileged when
various groups get together and help those in need. A case in point is the joint
venture of The Growling Swan, Khao Bi Sri, Jimmy and it was Pattaya Sports Club
who put all the pieces together to achieve a successful conclusion to the story.
The Growling Swan had been raising funds to help the underprivileged since they
started a golf bar in Soi Chaiyaphun. They have generously donated 150,000 baht
in that time to buy sports equipment, build houses and now have paid for 6
machines to be delivered to Khao Bi Sri bringing great joy to the children. A
remarkable group of guys, mainly from Australia.
Chu, a remarkable lady, runs the centre. She has devoted her life to helping
children that have severe learning difficulties. When I first got involved with
Khao Bi Sri there were about 30 children but this has now increased to 120
children that are autistic or have Down syndrome. Many companies and groups have
come to her aid in developing the centre, not least Jesters, PSC and the Thai
Navy based in Sattahip. Some of her children also have problems using their
legs, being unable or having difficulty walking.
Jimmy from the Camillian Social Centre has had his own health problems and now
spends his life helping children but, in particular, designing various simple
machines which can help handicapped children. I introduced him to Khao Bi Sri
for he had designed 2 walking frames to help children that had no muscle control
in their legs. He brought along 2 of his designs to determine if they could help
some of the children with muscular problems. They were an instant success with
big smiles on the children’s faces that had probably walked, albeit with
difficulty, without support from a helper for the first time. Much to the
delight of all the children, he also presented them with some cuddly toys.
If you would like to make a donation to help disabled children, regardless of
how small, please contact William at Pattaya Sports Club or telephone
0861522754.
The remarkable Chu who runs the
centre.
A little help is needed to start.
PSC, Jimmy and one happy boy.
The smile says it all.
Jimmy also delivered some cuddly toys.
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Green Pattaya with Thai Chinese
International School cleans Pratamnak Hill
The cleaning crew takes a break
after a hard day’s work picking up trash, discarded by inconsiderate people,
around Pratamnak Hill.
In the morning of the 20th September, 140 volunteer cleaners,
namely 60 students from the Thai Chinese International School in Bangkok, 20
Children from Father Ray Foundation, 15 Tourist Police volunteers, 20 staff from
a local newspaper, 15 staff from the Nova group, 5 staff from Premier
Environmental Solutions, along with a big number of volunteers, members of
Rotary and various media present.
This was the 20th cleaning by Green Pattaya and to celebrate, the cleaning was
extended from the bottom of Pratamnak Road with the bus park nearby, down
Rajchawaroon Road on the other side of the hill, ending at a cleaning on Cosy
Beach. A small group also cleaned the children’s playground from cigarette butts
and the walkways inside Queen Sirikit Park.
The Pattaya Tourist police made sure the children were safe from traffic but
also helped clean the bus park. A report will be made to Pattaya City Hall to
make sure the bus drivers keep the area clean and not dump their rubbish while
using the parking.
Rajchawaroon Road is sadly heavily polluted and a number of unofficial dumping
places are found along the roads. The cleaners did their best to clean; however,
old “promotion boards”ťalong with huge piles of rubbish made the work very hard.
A complaint will be made to Pattaya City Hall to make companies that use the
area for signs also take the signs down. Another problem is that City Hall are
not allowed, even if willing, to clean on private land.
The end of the cleaning, Cosy Beach still has an unofficial water fall due to a
broken pump and the three nonfunctional boats used as flower pots. This part of
the beach is still used as a dumping ground but after 5 cleanings from Green
Pattaya the beach is getting better.
All together two trucks of rubbish were collected and brought back to the
tourist police station where Premier Environmental Solutions used their portable
incinerator to burn all 2000 kilograms of rubbish, leaving a small bag of ash.
Everybody present was very impressed.
Main sponsor was Thai Chinese International School in Bangkok and they donated
500 baht for future projects. Kingdom Property made sure everybody had water to
drink during the cleaning and Premier Environmental Solutions provide their
portable incinerator along with caps to the children. From the city, Pattaya
City Hall provided cleaners and Pattaya Tourist Police provided security.
There is a number of cleanings planned with different schools in the near future
and special projects are underway with Premier Environmental Solutions to get
rid of rubbish piles around Pattaya. Please contact Green Pattaya if you want to
help. Green Pattaya is a project by Rotary E-Club of the Carolinas.
https://www.facebook.com/GreenPattaya
The next official cleaning will be on 8 November 09.00 - location to be
announced soon. Partners are http://ise.ac.th/ If you want to sponsor, join or
help us in any other way please get in contact [email protected]
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