We play catch up with some of the Singapore Tatler Ball 2015 awardees.
Billy and Jessie Lee, Society Couple of the Year
Billy and Jessie Lee have been married for over 42 years, so the Lees definitely know a thing or two about making a relationship work. For their wedding anniversary this year, they headed to Hong Kong to enjoy a weekend of good food and with good friends. “It was a memorable way of reminiscing our youth over an intimate celebration of this special occasion,” they say.
Travel brings the two closer together; Billy shares that they also went on a road trip last year to his university town of Leeds. “We visited the same cottage where we both resided while I was doing my postgraduate studies. It was a nostalgic trip for the both of us, as we saw that some of the pubs, taverns and fish & chips stores we used to visit are still around after all this time!” shares Billy.
Christopher Wilson, Award for Community Service
Christopher Wilson is the co-founder of Social Capital Venture Development (SCVD), which has since been rebranded to Water and Healthcare Foundation (WAH). It is an organisation that focuses on providing safe, clean water to schools, hospitals, orphanages and rural villages in Cambodia. In the past year, it has made leaps and bounds in its development, improving water and hygiene systems that now use metal structures instead of concrete.
In addition, “the latest statistics from our midwife training programmes with KK Women’s and Children’s Hospital show a 70 per cent drop in mortality rate for women during childbirth,” says Wilson. He shares that WAH also started a paediatric training programme in February 2016 to reduce the mortality rate of children, using simple emergency methods to save their lives with the help of over 100 nurses and doctors.
Janek Schergen, Award for Culture
Janek Schergen is the artistic director of both the Singapore Dance Theatre (SDT) and the Choo-San Goh and H Robert Magee Foundation. 2016 has been a busy and fulfilling year for SDT. In February, they organised a successful fundraising gala, The Moon and the Stars. This was followed by performances of Don Quixote at the Esplanade Theatre, a tour of Malaysia in April, and Ballet Under the Stars in July.
August saw SDT presenting its annual international repertoire season, Masterpiece in Motion, while moving onto the contemporary season, Passages, in October. Besides preparing for a performance of The Nutcracker in December, Schergen has his hands full planning next season’s repertoire. “We are working on a very fun series of performances for next season called ‘The Weddings’, which will feature wedding scenes from three famous ballets, Sleeping Beauty, Coppelia, and Don Quixote, which will be presented for Ballet Under the Stars.”
Karsono Kwee, Award for Business
Karson Kwee is the executive chairman of Eurokars Group, the largest privately held distributorship in Singapore with a turnover of $1 billion in 2015, and a market share of over 9 per cent as of June 2016.
This June, Eurokars embarked on developing a 438,000 sq. ft. facility in Tanjong Penjuru, with the aim of building a $60 million facility that will house its after-sales operations and all the brands under the group. It will also serve as a one-stop hub for repairs and maintenance, pre-delivery inspection, body repair and spray painting. The construction of the facility has begun, and is expected to be completed in early 2018.
On top of that, the Eurokars Group will commence construction of its new corporate headquarters on Kung Chong Road in 2017.
Shabnam Arashan, Award for Style
Shabnam Arashan is the director of family-owned business, Selat Offshore and the assistant director of the Legal Aid Bureau. A recipient of the National Art Council’s Patron of the Arts Award, she says that the one performance she enjoyed in the past year was Totem by Cirque du Soleil.“I especially enjoyed the Native American and Indian musical elements of the performance,” she says.
Arashan was recognised for her sense of style at last year's Singapore Tatler Ball and her favourite autumn trend this year is the off-shoulder look as it works for both day and night. Van Cleef & Arpels’ Bouton d’Or collection has caught her eye, too, as “the jewels and gemstones resemble flower and bouquets, and the three-dimensional facets are especially eye-catching.”