"A Great Party 101,500 raised - NEW:Boxer's Pics :-)
Hello Friends,
UPDATED ...Here is Boxers great photos of the Fab Feb Show and Fundraising Party held last night at Jomtien Complex...
http://www.boxertravels.net/allen1/index.htm .
Thanks again...
TravelerJim
This is an unofficial report on the happenings at last nights "Fab Feb Street Party" hosted by several fine gay businesses in the Jomtien Complex - Pattaya. I say "unofficial" as I a reporting my personal experiences and what I heard said during the night.
It was THE BEST party I have attended in Pattaya :-) WOW, what a great night of friendship, love and outpouring of support shown our dear friend - The Gay Pattayan :-)
Yes, The "Fab Feb" Street Party Benefit for The Gay Pattayan - Allen, was well attended by (my guess) - at least 250 - 300 guests....maybe more as the night gathered more excitement and the music and show time played on from 9:30pm to the early morning hour of 1:00am ....maybe longer as that is when I headed home to rest! The tables were full of party goers stretching from in front of "Over the Rainbow" Club in both directions....and more joined the party throughout the night - even as the 4 wonderful buffets full of good food served closed at 10:00pm.
Monty served as the MC for the evenings entertainment and show time. Indeed he was in his best of spirits and dressed in his white silk blazer - followed later by a change into a bright red silk blazer with white shirt and red silk bow tie, he was ready for the show! Monty the Showman he was last night! Great job Monty!! (The only way he could have made the night even a bigger hit - was for him to do "The Full Monty" with his Cabaret Show ... :-)
The ticket price was 300 baht and was good for buffet dinner and one drink. All added drinks were 100 baht each during the night.
The food served on the four buffet tables was attractive and good! (though may I suggest in future nights of street parties - that the ticket buyer be informed that they only can choose their food from one of the buffet tables set up - you cannot go from buffet table to buffet table to pick and choose your dinner choices). For info - each sponsoring restaurant set up and served their buffet items from one table - therefore with 4 restaurants participating - there were 4 buffet tables - but once you gave your ticket to one table and your hand stamped - you could not go to another buffet table to enjoy any of their choices).
Another suggestion - may I ask you have 2 prices for your drinks - maybe 50 baht for spring and soda water or soda pop (coke, diet coke etc); and 100 baht for alcoholic drinks (beer, wine and mixed drinks). I think many more drinks would be sold during the night with this price setup. I surely would have ordeed more drinks and as I watched many other guests during the night - I believe they were resistant to ordering 100 baht priced drinks for a smal bottle of water or soda pop.
The entertainment provided by many of the Jomtien Complex Clubs was very good and showcased Thais with talent galore - song, dance and comedy too. The Thais from the clubs were joined by several talented farang guest entertainers in Drag - great entertainment from them all - and the best was last - with two very talented young Thais - a boy and a girl - I believe a brother and sister - (their Mother was a Thai singer and talented entertainer too) sang and wiggled their dance and sang their songs on stage to the clapping and cheers from an appreciative audience...they are real entertainers already at their young ages of about 7 and 10.
A great show indeed!
The auction to raise funds for The Gay Pattayan - Allen - accompanied by individual donations which were handed to Boxer and Wally during the night - and announced by Boxer of Boxer Travels, along with the pass the plate donations - raised a sum of about 101,500 baht :-)
Including....(now confirmed Friday afternoon by Wally of Thais4Life) ....101,500 baht ....
Pattaya Properties gave an envelope to Boxer with their donation of 40,000 baht;
A guest at The Bondi Hotel & Guest House gave its owner an envelope which he passed to Boxer and in it was a note of Thanks to The Gay Pattayan for all GP had done in years past - he was a reader of the Weekly Report and though he had never met The GP - he wanted to express his thanks for GP's efforts in the Weekly Report. In the envelope was the gentleman's personal donation of 20,000 baht.
A third envelope was passed to Boxer again by the owner of The Bondi Club and Hotel - Guest House - from another of their guests and he said likewise - I have never met you personally - but I am adding my Thanks to GP for all you have done for the Gay Community in Pattaya - with a 10,000 baht donation.
Monty announced his donation of 5,000 baht and his donation - (this amount was included in the "pass the plate" donations);
The Auction raised 18,200 baht and the pass the plate raised another 12,420 baht....
Total donated was 101,220 baht ...but...
The actual amount deposited was "rounded up" by Wally to a total 101,500 baht for the GP Medical Care Fund at Thais4Life.
I have got the numbers correct...- a great night for The GP! (UPDATE: Wally of Thais4Life confirmed Friday afternoon the banking of 101,500 from the benefit for Allen's Medical Care Fund :-) )
At 9:37pm...I got a telephone call on my cell phone and missed it. The music and show time was on and I did not hear the ring. But at 10:30pm I saw the phone had 1 missed call.....it was from Allen - The Gay Pattayan. During the day - in the afternoon I had tried to call Allen hoping to have his bf answer to get an update on Allen's condition. But got no answer.
Allen was operated on at 9:00am to relieve the water on the brain which had reoccurred since his brain surgery of last week. Following surgery he was placed in ICU - Intensive Care Unit at Bangkok Pattaya Hospital. Then ...to my wonderful surprise - Allen calls me to say he is now back in his hospital room and doing fine :-)
I quickly rushed over to Wally - seated several tables over from me - and said to him "Allen is on the phone". Wally - with very surprised look - chatted with Allen - walked with cell phone in his ear up to the stage front - and told Monty "Allen was on the phone".....Wally told Allen many of his friends were enjoying a street party being held in his honor.
I passed the phone to Ken - Allen's bf and Ken - with tears of joy rolling down his face - upon learning Allen was on the phone - rushed to a quieter place inside a business to better hear Allen speak his words of thanksgiving to him and others for coming out to the street party...Allen asked we pass his thanks and love to all in attendance for their support and prayers.
Again, my friends, what a party! ...and a great night of good food, fun and music to be enjoyed by all in honor of our dear friend - Allen - The Gay Pattayan.
Thank you for your attendance and donations being sent in from all over the world.
Prior to yesterday's surgery Allen's share of hospital and surgery costs have already passed the 200,000 baht mark! The surgery yesterday I estimate will cost Allen an added 30 - 40,000 baht. And we are early into this year of 2007 with 3 surgeries within a month.
I now believe we will need to raise over 300,000 + baht to be able to cover Allen's medical care costs...with a margin for safety.
Hopefully the surgery yesterday is his last.... We all hope so....
Please Get well soon Allen !
Special thanks to the gay business owners of the Jomtien Gay Business Community in Jomtien Complex who sponsored the night for The GP. I realize there are those among us - myself included - who are critics of the manner by which it seems the gay business community conducts their charitable events without true transparency, but I do believe last night's "Fab Feb Street Party" was great - and hopefully you had a great night too :-)
I am proud to have had the opportunity to share in the "Fab Feb Street Party" and had great fun all night long :-)
I look forward to the Cafe Royale Dinner and Showtime - benefit for The Gay Pattayan - being held on Saturday night Feb 10th.
I have booked my reservation and have my bf and 2 added farang friends seated at our table to enjoy the night at Cafe Royale.
The cameras were clicking - so I am sure soon there will be photos from Boxer and others to share :-)
UPDATE: Great!!!
The photos are now posted... Thanks Boxer for the great pics :-)
http://www.boxertravels.net/allen1/index.htm .
:cheers: :cheers: :cheers: to All ... Thanks for your support!
TravelerJim
Wonderful congratulations to those involved
An unexpected Gentleman called made me forget my plans to attend the street party. I'l try to make the next one.
"It was THE BEST party I have attended in Pattaya :-) WOW, what a great night of friendship, love and outpouring of support shown our dear friend" travelerjim
It seems to have gone very well indeed and some very generous donations will be much appreciated. Congratulations to all involved. It warms the heart to see the response when a valued member of our community is in financial distress.
I see on the forums that some are asking the restaurants who provided the food and the bars that provided the drinks to state what portion they are contributing to the Charity. What a bloody cheek! They provided a dinner buffet, a drink and a cabaret show for 300 baht which is terrific value. It is not usual for venues ans caterers to provide their services for free to support a charity. As a retired hotel manager, I have dealt with many charity events, dinner dances, hunt balls concerts, barbecues etc and it was never expected that we forgo our normal prices though a raffle donation was appreciated. Why some people feel that they can demand what others donate is beond me and seems very rude indeed.
I sincerely hope that those who organised and gave their time effort and staff to make the event such a big success are not miffed my the carpings of the negative bunch who seem to enjoy to making rain on everyone's parade. My congratulations again.
Be sure to see the pics..from Boxer...
Boxer has posted the pics from last nights party...
http://www.boxertravels.net/allen1/index.htm .
Great pics - Great night - Thanks Boxer....
Thank you all!
TravelerJim
Re: Wonderful congratulations to those involved
Quote:
Originally Posted by wowpow
I see on the forums that some are asking the restaurants who provided the food and the bars that provided the drinks to state what portion they are contributing to the Charity. What a bloody cheek!
the people who attend these events pay for their own food and drink, and then are expected to buy raffle tickets and put donations in the box
the venue owners sell their food and drink at a profit, and usually have more customers that night than normal thus getting extra profit and also getting goodwill from hosting the event, so I don't see it as "bloddy cheek" to ask the owners to donate part of their profits - particularly the extra profilts. the venue owners often donate prizes for the raffles (at cost and also geting more goodwill for them) but they could also be offering a set amount from ticket sales, a seperate donation, or whatever
I am not asking bars to reveal their total sales or profit margins, just be up-front about what exactly is going to charity - and I have no problem with bars saying only raffle sales or donations go to charity, but I would expect them to donote as well!
bkkguy
I've been involved in many a hotel charity event
( although thank God, nothing as hideous as hunt ball ! :geek: ) but catering managers more often than not have a special price for charity functions--in fact I'm organising a big one now and I'm in a position of being able to pick and choose which competing venue will give me the best price. Clever charity organisers will use the fact they are bringing in a host of potential future customers as a bargaining point.
It's not unusual to ask what the break-down of costs is when people are asked to donate to charity.
Pattaya is probably a bit different as most venues are extremely competitve with prices and have low profit margins as it is..it's still a valid enquiry though.
Mind you--raising money for Allen's medical expenses is really a friendly gesture rather than charity so that's not really open to questions.
Re: that's a good question
Quote:
Originally Posted by Lunchtime O'Booze
### over 100,000 baht is an excellent result for this effort-it would indicate that people were being extremely generous on the night considering there are so many requests on them to donate.
Do you really think so? The individual donations from 4 known individuals came to 75,000, nearly 3/4 of the total. The pass the plate - the only true measure of the geneal audience donating something raised just over 12,000 which if there were 250 people there means an average of 50 a head. Does that seem people were being generous?
Re: that's a good question
Quote:
Originally Posted by Lunchtime O'Booze
That's why a break-down of donations, costs and disbursements is helpful
So you want to add a further overhead onto the owners - the cost of accounting for that particular function? Someone else has already remarked, not only is much of that commercially sensitive information, owning a bar is not necessarily the ticket to untold wealth, and many bar owners operate on much skimpier margins than they would like anyone (including their "friends") believe. As well, many bars are always on the market (in the sense that for the right price, they'd sell) and they're certainly not going to provide information that could influence the size of the offer
A better solution would be for the charity organizers to offer the bar owner a flat fee for the use of their premises and staff and a set limit on the amount of booze to be sold, and take the surplus - essentially the bar income. However that would transfer the commercial risk from the owners to the charity and that's usually not a burden do-gooders wish to shoulder
