Press Release

20 July 2003

Gentlemen, may I welcome you to the 3rd PGF organised event of 2003 and to the 1st hosted by one of our committee members, Mr Richard Burke. I hope we can make tonight as successful as the dinners held at Bruno's and Mata Hari, which each raised more than 100,000 Baht.

Entering 2003 with a strong balance sheet, enabled the PGF committee to change the format of the events for this year, limiting the official PGF organised events to 10, including the final 4 day festival. Upcoming events for your diary are:

• The Cheese and Wine evening at the Café Royale on the 23rd August
• The Miss PGF Contest on the 31 August at the school assembly rooms, on the corner of Second Road and South Pattaya Road
• The Mr PGF which will be held in the same venue on the 1 November and again, this year, organised by our sponsor ICON Group Asia.

By reducing the number of officially held functions, the way was left open for our sponsors, to hold their own events to raise funds for Heartt 2000. This has been very successful and our thanks and appreciation must go to the organisers and customers who supported the following events, held in the first half of the year:

• Jim & Gordon at Boyz Boyz Boyz for the Disco Divas Night, the Staff Party, the Miss China event and Lek's 40th Birthday.
• Kevin & Mark at Throb/Splash for the Mr Muscle Contest and the Double Birthday Bash.
• Terry & David at My Life for the Raffle.
• Robbie & Ian at the Café Royale for the Evening with Maisie Trollette.

Future sponsor's events are :

• A Fancy Dress Contest at Boyz Boyz Boyz on August 8th
• The PGF Bangkok Evening at Dick's Café on the 2nd September
• An event at Throb on the 25th September
• A charity dinner at Casa Pascals on the 20th October
• An event in the new Dick's Café in Jomtien, our latest sponsor, held soon after the opening on the 13th September.

Please also give a warm welcome to our other new sponsors in 2003, Café Pascal, Startreff, Two Faces and Exxit Cafe.

Turning to the half year financial results which should be available on the website: this shows income of 643,000 Baht vs. 1 million for the 1st half of 2002 and donations to Heartt 2000 of 1 million baht. The net cash outflow is 380,000 Baht, which still leaves a healthy bank balance to support our charities. Obviously we would expect things to pick up in the second half of the year though perhaps not to the level of last year but here's hoping…

Finally I would like to pass on Dr Philippe's apologies for not being with us tonight but he is attending the International Aids Society World Meeting in Paris along with Dr Jureerat.

He wishes to pass on his heartfelt thanks to all the supporters of the PGF events who enable him to carry on his work in Pattaya with those suffering from HIV-AIDs. Patient numbers continue to grow, 745 at the last count of which 232 are on the complicated and expensive therapy of Triple ARV. To quote Dr Philippe:

"The HIV-AIDs fight is still going on. We need your help so much. We have saved and are saving hundreds of lives together"

Thank you.