Dear BBC Members,
It has been some time since I have written to you, and a lot has been happening in the meantime.
Our charity work
As a club, we have hosted a number of events for causes, ranging from the charity concerts we held in December and February at the British Ambassador's Residence with Globus Music for the Center for Curative Pedagogics (c. RUB 300k raised) to the Annual Burns Supper we helped to organise at the Lotte (RUB 406k was raised for good causes, with 330k going to the Taganka Childrens' Fund and the rest to a concert for underprivileged children hosted the next day at the Lotte), and finally through our partnership with the Flying Banana childrens' theatre group.
There will be a lot more focus on raising money for charity in the coming months, not least because St. Andrew's Church Restoration Fund, needs USD 350,000 to be raised in order to trigger a payment obligation from the City of Moscow, to finance the remaining USD 2 million, required to restore the Church's foundations. The British Business Club will be supporting this project whole-heartedly. Not only is St. Andrew's a little corner of Britain in central Moscow, but it is open to all to use, carries lots of work for the needy, has an amazing history (it was used by the Bolsheviks as a machine gun post at one point, and later as a recording studio for Melodia), but is also an amazing building of significant architectural importance. You will see from the events list below, that we will be supporting a fund-raising event at the church on 2 April - Jesus Christ Superstar, a Rock Opera by Stas Namin, who has kindly donated a one-off show to the cause. The BBC will also be assisting with a fundraising boat trip in late May.
On 10 April, we will also be supporting the Taganka Childrens' Funds annual bowling event, an event which has already been announced! Thank you to all of you for continuing to support these worthwhile causes.
Our new website
With the kind support of Don Scott, our Honorary Lifetime Chairman, we are currently updating our website so that it will be completely re-vamped. This should be ready by next week, but there will be a period on 29 and 30 March, where the site will be down, whilst information is migrated. Thank you so much to Don Scott for his time, expertise and financial support with this process.
The future
With our new website up and running, and the summer months approaching, the club will be entering into an energetic phase of growth. As part of this, we hope to launch a regular online news bulletin, including information about our events, news about our members, and classified adverts, which might be of interest to our community. Now is the perfect time to encourage your friends and colleagues to take up our free membership offering, and to spread the word about our events. We are also hoping to announce a new celebrity patron of the club, which will help to raise our profile. Finally, following various trips to the regions, we are now planning our first trade missions to Ufa and to Krasnodar. The Ufa mission will take place some time in September and planning is already well under way. The aim of these missions will be to build contacts with the locals in government, business and the media, to experience different parts of Russia and to actually do some real business. If anybody has any questions about the trade missions or anything else, please write to me @ [email protected].
Forthcoming events and save-the-dates
Below please find registration links and guest speaker for all of our forthcoming events:
Tuesday, 2 April - Partner event for the St. Andrew's Restoration Fund - Jesus Christ Superstar, Rock Opera by Stas Namin.
Wednesday, 10 April - Taganka Childrens' Fund Annual Bowling Tournament.
Thursday, 11 April, evening event - Wines of New Zealand, a dinner hosted by His Excellency Ian Hill, the Ambassador for New Zealand, Lotte Hotel.
Thursday, 18 April, 12:30 - Shareholders' and Directors' Lunch hosted by Anatoly Karpov, Chess Grand Master @ Ovo by Carlo Cracco, Lotte Hotel.
Wednesday, 24 April, 19:00 - Spring Party at Audi City with Moet Hennessey, Nikolskaya Ulitsa 10.
Tuesday, 21 May, evening event - "A Piss-up in a Brewery", brewery tour, drinking games, quiz, competitions and networking at Seven Hills Brewery, Moscow.
Thursday, 23 May, 12:30 - Shareholders' and Directors' Lunch with guest speaker, Sergey Podstanitsky, collector of British fine arts @ Ovo by Carlo Cracco, Lotte Hotel.
Saturday, 25 May - Moscow River Cruise and Dinner in aid of the St. Andrew's Restoration Fund @ River Palace Cruise Boats.
Thursday, 27 June, 12:30 - Shareholders' and Directors' Lunch with guest speaker, Trevor Lewis, Counsellor, Director of Trade & Investment Russia for the Department for International Trade @ Ovo by Carlo Cracco, Lotte Hotel.
Early September - Trade Mission to Ufa, the Capital of the Republic of Bashkortostan, Russia.
Best wishes,
Luke Conner
President
The British Business Club in Russia
