Our upcoming Race Day was featured on the local cable channel, TV Phuket. Watch it here.
And PGTV, which can be watched online or in many hotels, also gave us a boost. See that report here.
Also, tune in to Phuket FM Radio 91.5, which is giving us great support.
Thanks, everyone!
PCF Director Janyaporn Morel (right) and Manager Roongprakai Sang-In chair the press conference.
The Phuket Community Foundation held a press conference on September 24 to launch its upcoming Race Day.
Some 20 members of local and national press attended the press conference, held at the Baan Klung Chinda restaurant in Phuket Town. Also attending were a number of the event’s sponsors.
Dressed in bright yellow PCF T-shirts and wearing “duck caps” made specially to promote the Great Phuket Rubber Duck Race, which will form part of Race Day, PCF’s director Janyaporn Morel and manager Roonprakai Sang-In briefed journalists on details of the event, which will take place at Canal Village, Laguna Phuket, on November 7.
Details of the event may be seen here, along with entry forms for the various races. Details of the Great Phuket Rubber Duck Race may be seen here.
The PCF is organising a fund-raising Race Day, with non-stop action throughout the afternoon of November 7, at Canal Village in Laguna Phuket.
Starting at about 2pm, we’ll have dragon boat races, kayak races, raft races and cardboard box races. We’ll also have the Great Phuket Rubber Duck Race.
The best part is, you can race too!
And at the same time you’ll be helping us to raise funds for grants towards worthwhile projects that will make Phuket an even better place than it is now.
Go to our Race Day page now for more details of what’s happening when, and how to enter you or your team for one – or more – of the events.
The PCF is delighted to have received a donation of one million baht from the Van Leer Group Foundation of the Netherlands. The donation was handed over to members of the PCF by Rien van Gendt, Executive Director of the VLGF from 2002 to 2007, and still very much active in supporting it.
Mr van Gendt handed over a symbolic “big cheque” to members of the PCF board during a dinner on Sunday (August 16) at the Baan Suan restaurant in Layan.
The PCF board has agreed that the donation, possibly along with other funds the PCF now has at its disposal, will be invested as a first step toward building up an endowment fund, providing a steady stream of revenue, thereby reducing the need to rely on constant fund-raising in order to cover running costs and grant funds.
PCF president Pranee Sakulpipatana said, “This is a quite magnificent gift from K. Rien and the Van Leer Group Foundation, who have already given us huge support. It also allows us to make a first small step towards freeing ourselves of the necessity to constantly raise funds.
“That said, there is a very long way to go yet before we will be able to to rely entirely on invested assets to cover our grant making programme, our ongoing projects and our management costs. So donations will always be very welcome.”
The PCF plans to open its first grant application session on December 1. More details will be published soon.
The Van Leer Group Foundation was set up in 1919 by Bernard Van Leer. He founded a small packaging company in the Netherlands that grew to become a world leader in the industry, providing him with the resources to pursue his philanthropic interests. The foundation’s site is here.
Pol Col Komol Wattarakorn watches students fit a new bulb.
A drive over the weekend to replace defective rear light bulbs on motorcycles, organised by the Phuket Community Foundation (PCF), changed 231 bulbs, making 231 individuals or families safer on their bikes at night.
The session, the fourth of its kind, was officially opened by Pol Col Komol Wattarakorn, Deputy Commander of Phuket Provincial Police. Also viewing the programme on the first day was Prommin Kantiya, Bangkok-based Director of the Accident Prevention Network, a division of the Thai Health Promotion Foundation, who praised the initiative for the way it brings different organisations together.
Members of the Kusoldharm Foundation invited motorcyclists with defective rear light bulbs to stop and get a free replacement fitted by students from the Vocational College. The bulbs, as on previous occasions, were supplied by local motorcycle dealers.
Sessions on Saturday and Sunday lasted from 4 to 8pm, near the weekend market in Wirat Hongyok Rd. On the first day, 121 bikes were fitted with new bulbs, and on the second, 110. The PCF would like to thank all those who helped to make this the most successful session yet.
Janyaporn Morel.
The PCF is delighted to announce the appointment of Janyaporn “Yo” Morel as its full-time Director. She will join the foundation on August 16.
Khun Yo is currently membership sales manager at Phuket’s premier golf club, the Blue Canyon Country Club. Before that she was Senior Reporter at the local English-language newspaper, the Phuket Gazette.
Born in Surin province, she holds a BSc in biotechnology from Mahasarakham University and a certificate in English for Tourism from Sukhothai Thammathirat Open University. She is fluent in Thai, Khmer and English and also speaks French.
Thanks to her biotechnology degree she previously held a variety of scientific and managerial positions in the pharmaceutical industry, with Cox Laboratories, Bayer Laboratories and Better Pharma, and in the food industry with Betagro.
With her energy and her proven skills in management, sales and communication, the PCF board believe she will be a very significant asset. Board members are looking forward very much to working with her.
For those who wish to contact her, her PCF email address is director@phuketcharity.org, while her phone number is +66 (0) 8 4442 8004.
Phuket Vice Governor Samith Palawatvichai snipped the ribbon this afternoon to open the third toy library organised by the Phuket Community Foundation, at Wat Muang Mai School in the north of the island. (Scroll down for picture gallery.)
Our thanks once again to our contributors both in Phuket and abroad. In this case they are:
In the gallery below, click on the thumbnails to see pictures. Click on the caption to view any photo full-size.
The Social Mapping project, the most extensive project so far carried out on behalf of the Phuket Community Foundation, is now almost complete.
The researchers who were commissioned to carry out this survey were asked to look at a variety of aspects of life in Phuket and identify problems, possible solutions and the priorities the PCF will set for itself.
The initial report is a weighty document – a work of great thoroughness undertaken by the Phattanasak Consultant Team of behalf of the PCF – and will take some time to digest, but we are happy to share it with anyone who feels it might be useful to them. Many of the conclusions will chime with those who call Phuket home, though there are also some surprising findings.
The report will take us some time to digest. We have also asked for the researchers to pursue answers to follow-up questions from us.
The final results will be available to anyone once we receive them.
The PCF will open its third toy library at Wat Muang Mai School in Tambon Thepkrasattree on Friday July 24 at 2pm. Everyone is invited. Expect dance shows and a puppet show from staff of Phuket International Hospital.
The wat is on the left of the main road, 6.6 km north of the main intersection in Thalang town, and about 900 m before the turnoff to the airport (see map below). We hope to see you there. And if you have kids, bring ‘em along too.
Jumras Pitikulsatit (2nd from left), hands the cheque for B100,000 to PCF President Pranee Sakulpipatana. Pictured with them are Piyarat Kulvanich, PCF Treasurer (left) and board member-elect Cynthia Ratcliffe.
Jumras Pitikulsatit, owner of Chester’s Grill in Phuket, made a magnificent donation of 100,000 baht to the Phuket Community Foundation (PCF) on June 27, at a ceremony at the Royal Phuket City Hotel, Phuket Town.
The donation will go to support the establishment of a toy library at Wat Muang Mai school, north of Thalang, part of the foundation’s ongoing Toy Library program.
The PCF has already established toy libraries at Wat Thepnimit Child Development Centre in Wichit and at Hongyok Bamrung School in Mai Khao.
For the NBT TV report on the event, click here.