Team Work makes the Dream Work

Charan Anand and Berthe Provencher at Griffon Golf club supper

I am still in rest mode after helping organize two great events last week. One lesson learned, you can't do it all by yourself. Good team work, great friends who support you, special hearts who inspire you, partners who shoulder the weight, it all comes together to make any event a success.

Friends and supporters cheered us on

Here's what we did last week: prepared and hosted the 34th International Benefit Golf tournament (www.montreal.benefitgolf.net) to support The Prem Rawat Foundation (programs like Food for People, clean water, peace education program and humanitarian aid in crisis situations) and 60 Million Girls (education for girls in developing countries). My husband Jacques and I were the principal coordinators, but we had an excellent team working with us. We attracted 13 foursomes and 88 people for supper at a private golf course near Lachute, Quebec, had some fun and raised some funds.  Jacques and I are also in the band Friends of Peace, who performed that evening, and we both played 18 rounds of golf. (I don't think that is a winning combination, way too much for one day!)

Charan Anand, Jacques, Francois Nolin

A few days before that, we lent out our garage as cooking facility (with rented burners and pots) for a team of about ten people to prepare an Indian feast for 80 people, with master golfer and chef Charan Anand (81 years old and still travelling the world).  Two days of chopping, peeling, boiling, stirring and learning how to make coriander chutney with bright green jalapeno chilies! Wow! Our good friend Brian bought us two huge stir paddles, so we could wade through the potato-cauliflower subji. We had a lotta fun, and my kids pitched in to help stuff eggplants and transport 12 pans and two pots of food to Lachine's Veille Brasserie.

Evelyne and Sobhana at the burners

Evelyne and Charan Anand stir the subji

Once there, the crowd was served a scrumptious lentil soup with sour cream (semi-Italian/Indian recipe, speciality of Charan Anand), potato-cauliflower subji, rice, stuffed eggplants (Sobhie's speciality), with mango pulp and ice-cream for dessert, all washed down with special spiced tea (chai). Charan Anand sang some songs, spoke for half an hour, and showed a short DVD of the humanitarian efforts of TPRF (www.tprf.org). 

Charan Anand had prepared similar feasts the week before in Toronto, Ottawa, and London, Ontario, raising $3000 to support the Golf Tournament and its charities.

Jean-Guy Labelle and Esmond de Grace

Georges Legere and Ginette Sauve came from New Brunswick

Happy Cook enjoying the meal, Sobhie Vadher

So, as you can see, team work made the week's events a great success! These are just a few shots, an attempt to capture the love and good energy generated. Thanks to all the volunteers who made the dream work.

Musemother/jenn