C NTACT THE MAGAZINE OF THE BRITISH WOMEN’S GROUP BANGKOK
July 2021
BRITISH WOMEN’S GROUP The aim of the Group is to enable its members to meet socially, to welcome its new members and associate members to Bangkok and to establish a programme of social, welfare and cultural activities.
Contents
Directory Page 2
Chairman’s message Page 3
Diary Page 4
Book Club Pages 6-7
THEP project Page 10
Royal Quiz Page 12
Chiang Mai Road Trip Pages 14-15
Editor contact@bwgbangkok.org Advertising advertising@bwgbangkok.org Please note that the deadline for advertisements is the 5th of the month prior to issue. Please contact advertising@bwgbangkok for more information. PLEASE NOTE : Contact is published as a service to our members to keep them informed of news and events within BWG. The accuracy of other information cannot be guaranteed and is not an endorsement by the group. This also applies to advertisements that are included in Contact in order to cover some of the production costs. Every effort is made to produce Contact in good time to reach members before the first scheduled meeting, but the editor cannot be held responsible for unavoidable delays caused by circumstance beyond their control. It is the members’ own responsibility to know when meetings are scheduled and to contact someone to check if any changes have been made. Members are also asked to bear in mind when booking actives that most venues are not deemed suitable for children over six months of age and to make appropriate child minding arrangements.
Chairman’s Message Hi ladies, It is great that I can actually write about some exciting things. Our lovely Treasurer, Liz Dobson has done an awesome job in getting so many of our members, partners and friends vaccinated against COVID 19 which has blighted so many lives. It is a massive step forward in Thailand, and I am sure I speak for many in thanking Liz for all her hard work. Thank you Liz. The other exciting bit of news, is that we are actually holding an event, which almost encompasses activity, lunch and coffee. Our now annual trip to Royal VARUNA Yacht Club is being held over 2 days on 7th and 8th July. It is a fabulous activity and so lovely to be able to escape the city, even for just 1 night. Thank you to Sally Fisken for organizing, and if you haven’t already booked, but would like to join, email Sally.fisken@gmail.com. I am really sorry to be missing it, as RVYC is one of my favourite places in Thailand. Congratulations to Joan Bartlett who won Gale’s Royal quiz, and thank you Gale for organising. Signing off from another dreary day in the UK. Stay safe and take care Sue Sadly, since the above was written, the Committee have had to take the decision to postpone VARUNA due to travel restrictions. We will let you know as soon as we can proceed with the trip.
www.bwgbangkok.org
info@bwgbangkok.org
British Women’s Group Bangkok
Contact April 2021
July Diary SUN
MON
TUE
WED
THU
FRI
SAT
1
2
3
4
5 Mahjong
6 Bridge Golf
7 Mah-jong Art Group
8
9
10
11
12 Mah-jong
13 Bridge Golf
14 Mah-jong Art Group
15
16
17
18
19 Mah-jong
20 Bridge Golf
21 Mah-jong Art Group
22
23
24
25
26 Mah-jong
27 Bridge Golf
28 Mah-jong Art Group
29
30
31
Weekly/Monthly Activities You are invited to join these groups, but final approval is at the discretion of individual group leaders
Monday Mah-jong - (beginners welcome) (10am - 1pm) Tuesday Bridge - Audrie Sill Golf - (morning) Sheona Jackson Bookworms - 1st Tuesday (10am) Jane Upperton Scottish Dancing - 1st Tuesday (7:30pm) Karen Burr Wednesday Mah-jong - (beginners welcome) (10am - 1pm) Art Group - Bistro 33 Sukhumvit Soi 33 (10am -12:30pm) Karin Worthington
nspiring ndividuals At KIS International School all students can shine. The midsize, caring community allows KIS students to be confident and to be appreciated as an individual, with unique dreams and strengths. The school is a full IB school, offering the International Baccalaureate Programmes for all age groups (IB Primary Years Programme, IB Middle Years Programme and IB Diploma), ensuring an academically rigorous curriculum that not only prepares students to be successful at university, but also teaches important life skills. KIS, it’s all about Knowledge, Inspiration and Spirit. Check out the students’ videos to learn more about their passion www.kis.ac.th
Tel: +66 (0) 2274 3444 Email: admissions@kis.ac.th
“With the power of imagination, characters can actually fly off the page” Jun, Grade 11.
Bookworms - July
Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer
Another Covid bookclub so three us were present including Lynn Smith who kindly connected us to Zoom so that Liz Dobson and Tina Boonyai could join us. This is the story of a disaster unfolding for climbers during a time of overcrowding and commercialisation of Everest in 1996. It is written by Jon Krakauer - a journalist and a climber who was on assignment from Outside Magazine to write the story of his experience in a guided climb group. He joined a guided climb led by New Zealander Rob Hall of Adventure Consultants who was the first person to conceive the idea of guided climbs to get groups to the top of Everest and back safely, despite many of the clients having limited skills and experience for such a task. That spring in 1996, Everest was crowded with expeditions from Taiwan, America, New Zealand, South Africa and more. According to Jon Krakauer this crowding was the first contributing factor to the disaster and the commercialisation of Everest was noted also to be a contributing factor. Success at getting climbers to the summit one year meant more climbers the following year. Rob Hall and an American, Scott Fischer, leader of Mountain Madness joined up because of their concerns about the numbers of climbers and the lack of ability of some groups to cooperate eg on which days to go to the summit. Eventually things did start to go wrong, eg two of their Sherpas were supposed to attach the fixed ropes but one of them went to do the bidding of an NBC anchor on Scott Fischer’s team basically holding her hand. As a consequence, the other Sherpa didn’t do the fixed ropes either and this resulted in holdups and very cold and irritable climbers. As the teams got closer to the summit some climbers were in bad shape and did turn back but then Rob Hall was persuaded by a client (who was on his third attempt at the summit), against his better judgement, to pass the turn around location and they were both caught in a sudden storm. Their plight was then compounded by the realisation that there were no full oxygen bottles. Another climber went back to help but unfortunately the three of them died on the mountain. By this time, Scott Fischer was also in a bad way having been affected by the altitude and this also killed him. Eight climbers from those teams died on the mountain on May 10th 1996. Many of the others were also in a bad way. One Russian man climbed back to bring in as many people as he could. Jon Krakauer, who was down at base camp, was unable to help because of snow blindness.
Bookclub comments: ’I was shocked at how self centred and callous they were - walking past people needing help’ ‘It was interesting - not a book I would have picked up’ ‘I enjoyed it. It was informative and I liked the way Jon Krakauer wrote’ Another of us remarked on the way the Russians just kept going out to rescue people though not in good shape themselves. ‘I found this book an easy read, well-written, informative, fast moving, and I marvelled at courage of climbers climbing a mountain because it is there’ ‘There is an excellent film on Netflix based on this book’ Laura’s husband has climbed Everest and it was thought it might be interesting to hear his thoughts when they return to Bangkok.
Scores 5 - 7/10 and 1 - 9/10
I was hoping that we would have the next meeting, and my last in Bangkok, here at Urbana - as I leave here at the end of July. However my apartment is upside down with me packing. Lynn Smith has kindly offered to step in as coordinator when she comes back from the UK in October time. In the meantime Liz D, already wearing many hats with the BWG will cover.
I spoke yesterday with Giuseppe at Trattoria Delina and he has agreed to host the bookclub on Tuesday mornings. We have to provide our own biscuits.
We are in strange times- at least 8 bookclub members are in UK and EU and a few more are in self quarantine at the moment. Therefore how many will come to the next meeting is anyone’s guess. Let’s see. The next meeting will be not on Tuesday 6th but on Wednesday 7th at Delinas. We just changed the day temporarily so that a few of us can still make crackers on Tuesday morning. On Wednesday 7th we will meet at 10am-12 noon for bookclub and then follow up with the Wednesday lunch at Delinas if anyone likes that idea.
Thank you all of you for being so lovely and making the bookclub so enjoyable.
Hope to see you soon.
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THEP (Thailand Hilltribe Education Projects) and the Covid-19 pandemic.
The THEP Scholarship Programme provides support for hilltribe students to further their secondary and tertiary education. With the advantage of higher education, young people have improved skills and knowledge, access to better employment, and will serve as future contributors and leaders to the development of their communities. But there is strong evidence that hilltribe children living in remote villages are mostly disadvantaged in comparison with their urban counterparts. To receive secondary or tertiary education, hilltribe students have to live far from their homes, some up to 300 kms away. Since COVID 19 was declared a pandemic in March 2020, schools and universities in Thailand switched to online classes. This transition to online teaching was not smooth, because some school teachers and university professors struggled with teaching apps and remote methodologies. Many of our students had to return to their villages with no computers and internet and could not follow lessons. Some of our university students have been unable to travel to their dormitories in the cities to carry on their online studies, owing to lockdown and other restrictions. All these issues have caused delays in the delivery of the curriculum, and poorer learning outcomes. THEP activities have been disrupted because exams, internships and grading had to be postponed or delayed, and our monitoring of students has had to be carried out online. Schools and universities have not been able to open since the recent second-wave of Covid-19 and the first semester of high school has been set back to mid-June. Again due to internet connection issues, not all of our scholarship students are able to follow online classes and have had to stay home and help their parents on the land. The financial difficulties for hilltribe students and their families during the pandemic are severe because of the disruption to the supply chain for the crops they grow. Although hilltribe people are basically self-sufficient, they now have relatively no income to support the education of their children and the menial restaurant and hotel jobs that the students rely on to supplement their income have dried up. We feel obliged to step up and support our students. We sincerely thank you for your ongoing support. Susan Race for the THEP Team https://www.thepthailand.com
ROYAL QUIZ 2021 As our usual Queen’s Birthday coffee morning was unable to be held as usual, I thought I would try to keep up a small semblance of the moment with the royal quiz which I have been doing since 2002!! I had to look that up – WOW ALMOST 20 YEARS!! There was a poor response and I know it is not the same as when we are all together and having a good old session of British banter so I decided to reward the participants (out of my own pocket) with a prize. Joan Bartlett was the winner and flowers were sent for which she was thrilled. Karen Wainwright, Liz Dobson and Lynne Smith were given wine and chocolate just for taking part and made good efforts, Liz sending hers within a few hours! I am not sure how long I have had the wine so hope no one becomes ill. The fifth participant was Sue O’Hare who drew first with Joan but she was late submitting her answers (a lesson to spell my name correctly on emails folk) and also is in UK so will buy her a glass of wine when we next meet – whenever that might be in this crazy world we are living in at the moment! It has always been for a bit of fun and this year was no different – trying to keep the status quo is not easy! Stay safe and sane everyone.
By Gale Bailey MBE
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CHIANG MAI – CHIANG DAO - LAMPANG – LAMPHUN – CHIANG MAI 23rd December 2020 – 3rd January 2021 PART 5 LAMPANG - (VIA LAMPHUN) - CHIANG MAI Time to reluctantly leave Lampang, a great place and accommodation for a long weekend. It has a really nice atmosphere about it and is easy to get to via public transport with flights & trains from Bangkok. Due to the outbreak of Covid in Samut Sakhon I had brought all of my belongings with me, with the idea that if it looked like Bangkok would go into lock down, I could return from there. Fortunately, the progress of the situation allowed me to continue my trip. Lampang has many interesting styles of temple and I look forward to returning there in the future to check out more. We took the shorter route back to Chiang Mai with a stop off at Wat Si Rongmuang, a Burmese Temple, along the way. We also passed through a small town called Lamphun where we stopped briefly at a pretty café called “The Temple” (due to its proximity to a very impressive temple complex across the road) Here we had excellent homemade cakes Yum! Yum! For the last 24 kms of our journey we took the very scenic Old Lamphun Road (route 106) rather than Route 11. I would say this is a must travel route as it includes a lovely 15 km stretch lined on either side with Giant Yang Na trees wrapped in orange material to show they are protected. I so liked the look of the temple in Lamphun that I decided I would return the next day on my own while my friend worked.
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