President’s Message

August 2008

Dear Colleagues and Friends,

August is the month where nationalism is always at its peak because of the nation’s celebration of independence. This year we cross the 43rd year mark and progress in the long term for the nation has never been better despite the not too positive economic environment upfront ahead. Transpire that in similarity to our profession, most chefs are also at one of their highest peaks at this window of age with consistence performance and job experience. This is the time we have experience and knowledge to train the next generation of leaders to carry on the excellence that we have achieved today into tomorrow’s new leadership. It is a lot easier said than done but we still need to push ahead and it can be achieved. The government is supportive in giving grants, setting up agencies to establish guidelines of standards of excellence and I am very happy to say that SCA is proud to be in partnership in such initiatives to make the chef’s profession a more attractive career option for our future generations. Details will be announced in due progress.

International Chefs Day
Despite being in coincidence with time during the upcoming Culinary Olympics at Efurt, Germany, key committee members who are not in the Efurt entourage will be hosting a series of activities to commemorate this special day dedicated to all chefs around the world. SCA will play host to groups of children from 3 selected orphanages through fun cooking activities and educational spice garden walks with the chefs. This is made possible thanks to the kind generous sponsorship by at-Sunrice GlobalChef Academy who offered us the privilege to use their facilities for free.

Membership Privileges
I am please to share with all here, a soon to be launched scheme of benefits from various F&B vendors to all membership card holders. From September 15th onwards, a list of restaurants, purveyors will be made available here on the website whereby members can redeem certain accredited privileges exclusively conferred upon our SCA Membership card holders. Furthermore we are also working to enlarge the list as time goes by so as to give more value to all card holders. Do stay tune to the webpage upon closer to the launch date for information about the scheme.

Extra Curriculum Activties
Across the months every year, the SCA committee organizes a plethora of activities for its members in social, educational and recreational context. In the line with progress and keeping the levels of interests consistent to support such activities, we welcome feedback from members for new ideas that can be explored or how improvements can be made to encourage more cohesiveness among different age groups of members and nationalities. Please contribute your ideas to Singaporechefs@gmail.com.

On this note I wish to extend to all of you whether it is in Singapore or any other part of the globe ….enjoy good food and great wine always. Travel safely and most of all be proud, to be a chef.

Eric Teo
President
Singapore Chefs’ Association (SCA)