PATTAYA, Thailand – With over 180 in attendance Rotary Club Eastern Seaboard sold out all available seats for their annual Christmas party ‘signature’ event on Friday 15 December. Held once again at the amazing Sukosol Siam Bayshore Resort Parkview Ballroom, where GM Ben Chang and his great catering and service team lived up to all we had wished for in planning of the event. RCES Member Kim Waddoup led on coordination of the Club’s planning team, and as ever all Members rallied round on the night to provide the best party experience possible.
The Club was once again pleased to have distinguished Diplomatic guests in attendance , including HM Consul of UK to Thailand Joanne Finnamore-Crorkin, all showing their personal support for all the charitable work that RCES do for our Thai Community locally and beyond, and of course themselves having a much welcomed enjoyable night off !
Guests were treated at this totally ‘not for profit’ event to an amazing value full Christmas buffet dinner, along with numerous seafood and alternative dishes, as well as free-flow wines and beer. Something for everyone and a great start to the festive season. As well as all the guests, the well-dressed tables looked beautiful and were supplemented by kind gifts supplied by Rotarians Khun Dao & Jeff Mitchell of AMAR International and discount vouchers from Samitivej Siracha Hospital for those anticipated New Year resolution ‘health-checks’.
Following an introductory speech by RCES President Steve Rochester on the activity of Rotary and RCES, and introduction of guests by MC Michael Todd-White, it was straight into a night of fun and entertainment. The children from the ASEAN Education Centre and Child Development & Protection Centre were once again first up with their wonderful singing of Christmas songs and with many guests joining making a great start to the night.
Santa Claus (a close personal friend of Rodney Charman) made sure that all children in the choir received a gift. This was a continuation as part of our RCES Club’s Christmas bags project. Over 650 local vulnerable children mostly in various care homes have this month received a Santa’s Christmas gift bag of goodies from RCES this year, our most delivered yet! Their smiles were amazing! After dinner the calories were ‘burned off’ with energetic guests of all ages filling the dance floor to the superb sounds of Power Jam , one of the best, if not the best ‘show bands’ in the region.
This year the RCES team achieved our best ever raffle with the most wonderful collection of sponsored prizes, including many Pattaya and Bangkok hotels, private Hospitals and even one lucky winner won a sunset cruise for 20 people! The raffle and some fund-raising activity at the party achieved a superb total raised of 170,000 THB on the night.
Our deepest thanks to all the kind and generous companies and sponsors that supported us by providing such superb prizes this year, the outcome of the raffle based on these was our highest total achieved on a single occasion!
RCES assures all guests and sponsors that 100% of this wonderful total is to be split between the three most deserving Pattaya charities that we agreed as a Club to support this year from our party fund-raising :
1. The Pattaya association of Parents of Children with Disabilities.
2. The Fountain of Life (Good Shepherd Sisters) – Empowering women and young girls to make better life choices.
3. The Glory Hut. AIDS / HIV Refuge.
The presentations to the 3 charities will be published on our RCES Club Facebook page.
On behalf of RCES my thanks to all local Rotarians, sponsors, friends and supporters all of whom made it a great night of unity and fellowship.
It was wonderful to share the event with all those who attended and with this fund-raising RCES has done even more this year to Create Hope in our part of the World, whilst we enjoyed all the fun and fellowship.
On behalf of all Members of the Rotary Club Eastern Seaboard (Thailand) thank you all so very much and a very Happy Christmas everybody!
