And we’re still catching up

This post is only 2 weeks overdue. Not bad.

The company gala dinner was held on the 15th Dec at the Godolphin Ballroom of the Jumeirah Emirates Towers Hotel. A strictly black tie event, with a 3-course sit down dinner, some music and of course drinks.

It took about two months of preparation mostly involving chasing people for their confirmation of attendance. Yes, Lee, I feel your teacher-pains! You would not believe that a group of grown-ups would be so difficult to pin down on RSVPs! Sheesh! I just about lost all sense of sanity in the past 6-8 weeks because of this.

So it was a great consolation that the event turned out to be a great success. Attendance was at 80%, which was alright considering a lot of the guys were already away for the holidays. And then some just didn’t want to bother acquiring a black tie. Alright, alright, I know you don’t want to hear me ranting away so here are the photos. There were plenty of point-and-shoot cameras that evening and three DSLRs so our digital archive is bursting with photographs! But for the sake of keeping my sanity and making this post as presentable as possible, I will only show you photos taken by my brother-in-law Larry, who was hired as our official photographer and those I took myself.

The Wealth Management Team. The guys who bring in the business.

The Business Development Team. The guys who help the guys above bring in the business.

Tim shooing the Admin Team to move back a bit.

These are the guys (yours truly included) who help the two teams above process the business they bring in. So as you can see it is a completely symbiotic relationship.

It was a Christmas event after all so we had roast turkey with cranberry sauce and sprouts for the main course. The starter (Atlantic prawns with mango salad) and dessert (pudding with brandy sauce) were just too yummy and got gobbled up so quickly that I don’t have photos of them. Too bad there were no spuds with the turkey.

Don’t they look just dashing in their DJ’s?

I tried my best to talk to everyone but there were just so many people and so many things to talk about that I didn’t even get to wave to some people. Yet, others seems to have had time to talk about the business. I’m sure Adam (left) is talking to Phil about his recruitment strategies next year as his girlfriend, Dawn looks on.

Carlos seemed to have found the inner child in him!

And yes, there’s me and Bernie. Ugh! I look awful! Anyone notice the shawl? It’s my Shawl That Jazz! So warm and comfy.

We had some really gorgeous ladies that evening like BFFs Edelyn and Jezzel.

And Heba who was shimmering in her pale blue dress and wrap.

But, hands down, the Goddess of the Evening was Nadine in her elegant black and gold Roman/Greek inspired attire. She was just stunning!

And this lot. You’ve seen them here in this blog before. Of course they have plenty more photos than others because they just love the camera. And the camera loves them back.

There was a lot of love in the room, but Darren was spreading something else other than love. Paul, I hope you washed your face!

More beautiful people, this time from our Abu Dhabi team.

The Abu Dhabi team again, loving the camera.

Even the office staff made an effort to come suitably attired. And they had a great night too!

After dinner and coffee, it was time to hit the dance floor. And no one raises the roof like Globaleye does! Yes, this might have been YMCA playing. Some guys couldn’t even spell YMCA!

Everyone at one point or another was on the dance floor just going with the flow. It was great!

Even Olly and Karl! It was amazing to see someone as serious as Karl loosening up on the dance floor.

And of course the King of the Dancefloor was there too. He is so going to kill me if he finds this!

Joe sums it all up in this photograph – Number One! He is the company’s performer for 2009 and no doubt will be up there again with the best next year.

Oh and there was an embarrassing moment for me when Tim and Andy called me up towards the podium to say thanks for arranging the dinner and the trimmings. They gave me a lovely bouquet of pink lilies and when I wanted Andy to say thanks to other people who helped me as well, Tim pulled me up towards the podium so I had no choice but to stand up there, face my colleagues and speak. They were probably wondering what the heck I was on about.