Dear Members

Your new Committee met earlier this week under our new President, Chen Chuen Tat, and spent some considerable time discussing the future direction and thrust of the Society. In the mid 60's, when the Society was formed, there were no other organizations or restaurants, offering the type of wine dinners & functions that we did. This has all changed in recent years and wine/food events are offered by many restaurants and organizations, including Clubs and even the NTUC. Hence it was felt a range of new services and benefits for members should be examined in order to add value to being a member of the Society. However, it should be emphasized that your Society already offers great value in that we own more than 2,500 bottles of wonderful wines that has appreciated tremendously and of great value AND have no debts!!

The Committee has thus decided to explore and implement the following initiatives:-

1) News Letter
A bi-monthly e-news letter, written by our Vice-President, Graham Hayward, will be introduced to keep members abreast with Society events and developments, as well as with interesting wine/food news from S'pore. This is the first offering and we welcome your feedback on it.

2) Overseas Wine Tours
The Committee will explore the possibility of organizing overseas wine tours for members, their family & their friends. Areas could include Margaret River, South Australia, South Africa and of course, Bordeaux and Burgundy. Again, please let us know if you would be interested to join such a tour and which areas would appeal to you. You are welcome to give your feedback to Graham at livecds@starhub.net.sg in this respect.

3) Wine Purchases
Curtis Montgomery has taken over from Graham as the Society’s new Cellarmaster, after the latter's ten years tenure in that post. As it seems that the Bordeaux 2007 vintage is not likely to be very exciting, it was agreed that Curtis should not be looking at that vintage. Rather, Curtis has suggested looking at getting some iconic and headline wines which should prove to be excellent assets for the Society, whether the Society chooses to consume them subsequently or convert them into cash when they appreciate in value. Curtis also recommended looking at some good vintage Champagne, whites and Sauternes for the cellar, as around 97% of our bottles are of red wines currently. A budget of $20,000 was approved by the Committee for the Cellarmaster to purchase the wines for the Society for 2008.

4) Special Offers for Members
The Committee has agreed to sound out some key wine importers and merchants to see if they would extend exclusive offers to members for a certain period.

5) Honorary Term Membership
It was felt that it would be beneficial to the Society if 3 or 4 well known or influential members of the wine community could be invited as 'honorary' term members of the Society, which would encourage them to become involved in the Society's events and activities on top of adding prestige and presence to our Society. The ‘honorary’ term member would also be helpful in introducing our Society to other like-minded person(s) and help create awareness of our Society and its privileges to non-members. Jeremy Oliver, for example, was one name suggested that the Society may court to be its ‘honorary’ term member. Michael Hadley has been entasked to suggest and draw up parameters for the function and purpose of this proposed Honorary Term Membership for further presentation to the Committee and this will be followed up and developments reported to members. Meanwhile, again, we invite feedback from you as members to our President, CT Chen at ctchen@acieslaw.com in this respect.

6) Special Dinners
It was felt that not all events should be targeted for an attendance of 50-60 persons, as before. While the main monthly event would be of this nature, smaller informal dinners, for a limited no of members - say 10-20 - could be held in 'boutique' restaurants that cannot handle large numbers. Such events will be confined to members only. Attendance would be on a 'first-come, first-served' basis and this can also serve as an opportunity for the Cellarmaster and the members to review some of the wines that are currently held in our cellar. This would certainly help our Cellarmaster in the pairing of the wines in our cellars for future events to be organized by the Society. The President will explore this concept further. Again, your feed back on this idea to our President would be appreciated.

7) Forthcoming events

Please note these proposed events in your diary -

April 22nd - Bin Ends Night - Tanglin Club.
May 22nd - Ch Leoville Poyferre Dinner Event
May 26th - Margaux vs Pauillac Night
June 13th - Japanese Dinner
July 4th - American Event
August 8th - National Day Dinner - Zambuca - Black Tie.
Sept - Night Safari Dinner
Oct - Halloween Dinner!!
Oct - Bin Ends Night - No 2.
Nov - Shanghai Night - Grand Shanghai @ Copthorne Waterfront
Dec 13th – President’s Dinner – The Regent Hotel – Black Tie

As you can see, a very active programme is under way and we look forward to all of your support and participation at these functions.

8) Membership
Our membership now stands at around 110. This is a little lower than it was a few years ago, for reasons most of you understand. We now wish to rebuild this Society to a somewhat higher base and would ask you to introduce any of your friends whom you think would like to become members and enjoy the benefits of the society and the friendly social inter-action that exists between our members.

FEEDBACK -
And don't forget - please send your views on this news letter to livecds@starhub.net.sg . We look forward to hearing from you......


Regards,
Graham Hayward
Vice-President