Ladies Breakfasts 2009
In 2009, the Committee decided, in lieu of the ball, to introduce a new fundraising event, and on Thursday 21st May 2009, our first Solstice Foundation Ladies’ Breakfast was held at the Vineyard Hotel and was declared a great success!
Our guest speaker was Professor Wayne Derman who is Associate Professor of Sport Science and Sports Medicine at the University of Cape Town’s Sport Science Institute of South Africa and is Medical Director of Medifit the Chronic Disease Rehabilitation Programme at the Institute. He was Medical Officer for the South African Olympic Team for the Sydney 2000 and Athens 2004 Olympic Games and Paralympic Games in Beijing 2008. He also served as Flight Surgeon to Cosmonaught Mark Shuttleworth during the “First African in Space” mission in Russia. He is widely regarded as an entertaining and humorous educational and motivational speaker, and he certainly didn’t disappoint his audience! The title of his speech was “Staying young whilst getting older – without Botox, Prozac or Viagra”
The breakfast was delicious and everyone was able to enjoy an entertaining speech and have the opportunity to contribute to the many Solstice beneficiaries and Brighten the Lives of fellow South Africans!
Our second breakfast was held on Wednesday 28th October 2009, again at the Vineyard Hotel with acclaimed speaker, Rod Suskin. Rod Suskin is a professional Astrologer based in Cape Town. He takes a spiritual approach to Astrology, using the tools of traditional Western Astrology and Vedic Astrology and his psychology degree to help use the information in a positive and affirmative way. He also has a special interest in Medical Astrology having been initiated as a Swazi Sangoma. Rod’s presentation was thoroughly enjoyable and entertaining, and as we had no less than 66 spot prizes to give away, hardly anyone left the breakfast empty handed!
The profit raised from the Breakfasts was R27 000. Although this is not as much as is raised by some of the other fundraising events, the response to the breakfasts was extremely positive and we feel that the Breakfasts were a good way to fill some of the Fundraising gap left by our Ball ‘Gap Year’, and to introduce new people to the Foundation.
