December’s Christmas Lunch at Royal Cliff Resort

The Lunch was held, as usual, at the Royal Cliff Hotel Ballroom and, as usual, the room was magnificently decorated and had several ice sculpted reindeers and a giant edible gingerbread house.

It was Tuesday, the 1st of December, and the ladies of the PILC were in a festive mood.  The day started out with something we just love, Christmas shopping!  With a large array of venders on hand displaying their decadent, decorative and delightful wares to tempt, how could we resist?

Gillian Thom, president of the PILC, then welcomed everyone to the event, and introduced the energetic children of Baan Jing Jai Orphanage,who had everyone up and singing along at a cracking pace to ‘Joy to the World’ and ‘We wish you a Merry Christmas’.  They were followed by the irresistibly cute preschoolers from Goh Pai Kindergarten, dressed in boater hats and wriggling away, in a wonderfully coordinated manner, to a few tunes.  Santa suddenly appeared with some sweets for the children, who were then treated to lunch.

Gillian thanked the children and hotel and started in on the farewells.  First up was Rachel Hoag, who was invited up to the stage and made a very impressive impromptu thank you speech.  Then came Judy Wright, who is blessed with always being able to speak up and who was also most gracious with just a slight word of warning about the job she is handing over (looking after the second hand books – not so easy).

Finally, Gillian thanked Ingrid Cunliffe and myself and invited us up on stage.  For those of you who don’t know, Ingrid has been the head of Welfare for the last few years with me as her faithful side-kick and, as it turns out, we are both leaving the country within days of each other.  Well, of course Ingrid started sobbing, which dashed all Gillian’s plans for a decent thank you speech out of us, because she knows what I am like behind a microphone (all monotone and mumble).

But, she carried on undeterred (it’s probably that British upbringing) and went ahead and presented us with a very thoughtful going away gift in the shape of a framed picture, each made up of many photos taken of us while out and about on our various welfare duties.  Judy Wright actually made a different one for each of us as she has a very clever computer program that can put all the photos together somehow, and they will be really special mementoes for us in the future.

[Gillian then said a fond farewell to two longstanding and hardworking members, Ingrid Cunliffe and Kathleen Petras.  These two amazing women have been instrumental in running the welfare department of the PILC for the last 4 years or more, and their generous contributions have been much appreciated by the PILC and the broader Pattaya communities which they have helped.  They were both given thank you gifts, including a beautiful collage of photos of their work over the last four years.  They will both certainly be missed.   Denise Bowles]

After a group photo of the leaving ladies, Gillian invited everyone to tuck into the amazing variety of food that had been set up around the perimeters of the room.  It was Christmas fare in abundance with dishes borrowed from all our native countries.  Angela, my German friend, was very happy to find some Stölen, and I was sorry I couldn’t fit more in my stomach because there was no way to sample everything!

After much consumption of food and wine, the raffle draw was held raising a hefty 23,000 baht!  This money will be used to go towards the Garunyawet Disabled Home visits and the Food Drop Program.

I must also mention that we were collecting First Aid kits and Toiletries (from flights and hotels) and had an incredible amount brought in for us to collect.  Thanks to everyone who has given to these collections.

All in all, the day was a resounding success, and very special for Ingrid and I.

Kathleen Petras