Wednesday, March 15th, was both an entertaining and informative meeting of the Pattaya City Expats Club with two guest presenters. First up was Mitch Benny, an entertainer extraordinaire, appearing with fellow Frenchman Yves Baron. This was followed by Michael North talking about his experience in the USA with “Angel Investing”, something others may wish to consider doing.
Mitch wowed the audience with his dynamic and powerful voice, especially the high notes. He is an international artist with French heritage and Israeli background having been first raised in Israel then France. He mentioned that this was the first time he has appeared before an audience as a speaker rather than just as a performer. Yves Baron, also from France, is a singer and promoter here in Pattaya. Having previously provided his own Words & Music presentation to the PCEC, Yves arranged for Mitch to appear at this meeting and joined him onstage where they performed some duets in addition to Mitch’s solo songs.
Mitch noted that his childhood was surrounded with Motown tunes and Latin classics. He started his professional career at the age of 19. His family is musical with his grandfather having been a singer and a twin brother who is also a professional musician. He initially started out as a drummer then thought he would try singing. Now, he loves and performs as both. He attributed his powerful voice projection to his often performing with a band without a microphone/amplifier; thus his need to project his voice.
Before Covid, he was in Thailand for a few years. Now, he spends about 5 or 6 months in Thailand and the rest in France. He normally performs primarily in the South of France. He is going back there soon, but plans to be back in Thailand in December of this year for another for 4 or 5 month stay. To listen to his great voice you can view his presentation on the PCEC’s YouTube Channel at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e4guI1hFP4U.
Mitch was followed by Michael North for a topic entitled, “A Journey into Angel Investing.” Michael mentioned that he is primarily an architectural/civil engineer. He said he was not promoting any investment business, but wanted to describe his experience in discovering and getting involved with what is often referred to as “Angel Investing.”
First, he explained how he got involved with it. His friend persuaded him to attend an event that his friend was unable to attend which involved information on how his friend might get funding for his business idea. Michael said he was so impressed by those at the event, he decided to join a group he overheard that were planning to form their own investment fund. He decided to join with that group which ultimately had 43 members, each investing 25,000 US dollars for each share.
Michael provided a brief but comprehensive PowerPoint presentation on how the Fund operated which was primarily to listen to a “pitch” for funds made by individuals or companies on their product/service, the factors the investors considered when evaluating the “pitch”, and the results for those they group decided to invest in. For most, they benefitted from their investment, but as expected, there were also a few failures. To view the video of Michael’s presentation on the PCEC YouTube channel, visit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3t80MCQlNmI.
MC Ren Lexander than mentioned some upcoming events before calling on George Wilson to conduct the Open Forum portion of the meeting where the audience comment and ask questions about Expat living in Thailand. To learn more about the PCEC, visit their website at: https://pcec.club.
