On November 26, the Swiss Canadian Chamber of Commerce (SCCC) invited their members and friends to the annual Pre-Christmas Reception and Silent Auction event. More than 80 people followed the invitation and joined the chamber to celebrate the beginning of the holiday season.
It has become a SCCC tradition to end the year with a Pre-Christmas Reception and Fundraising Event where members and friends of the chamber gather together before the busy holiday season starts. This year the event took place at the RBC Royal Bank on Georgia Street in Downtown Vancouver where the SCCC president Vince Sciamanna, officially opened the event with a short welcome speech. Afterwards the new Consul General, Andreas Rufer, was introduced through a Q&A lead by Fabian Lemann, SCCC board director. The attendees gained interesting insights about Andreas’ personal life, career and his aims for the next four years which includes to make Switzerland more visible in Western Canada.
Part of every Pre-Christmas Reception is the silent auction. Thanks to generous donations from our members and sponsors over 60 gifts were offered at this year’s silent auction. Among them was one particular special item donated by Atlin Mountain Inn: a 0.40 CT round cut diamond, one of only 50 Snap Lake Diamond Mine Specials sold as the mine closed December 2015.
The silent auction ended with a live auction moderated by Joey Kenward from Sportsnet650 and director Fabian Lemann where the guests were encouraged to bid live on certain items.
We would like to thank the over 50 sponsors for the silent auction who made such a great variety of prize items possible. Further, we would like to thank RBC for hosting us, Parallel49 for providing the beer and the St Hubertus & Oak Bay Estate Winery for offering the wine.
Thank you all for attending this event, bidding so generously and your ongoing support of the chamber during this year. We really appreciate it!
Check out our 2019 sponsor and silent auction cataloque here and find more pictures on our gallery. Please let us know if you want any picture removed or not published on social media.