March 3, 2025
The Haymarket Chamber of Commerce held its 2025 Year of the Snake Lunar New Year Banquet at the Zilver Restaurant in Chatswood on Friday, 7 February 2025 which was attended by more than 350 members and friends of the Chamber. The banquet was originally scheduled to be held at the Eight Restaurant but was later moved to its sister restaurant, Zilver, as The Eight was temporarily closed. What a fantastic lunar new year celebration it was!
At this year’s banquet, we were privileged and delighted to have the amazing lion troupe from Pak Hok Kung Fu International Inc. perform for us. Pak Hok 白鹤(which means White Crane in Cantonese) is a martial arts and lion dance school based in Sydney, and it was established in Sydney’s Chinatown in 1972.
You can watch a full video of Pak Hok’s lion dance performance at our banquet (filmed by Edwin Lais), featuring two adult lions and two cubs on our website HERE.
We would like to thank all members and guests for making the evening such a success and an enjoyable one including special guests Federal Minister Tanya Plibersek MP, Minister Stephen Kamper MP representing NSW Premier Chris Minns MP, Senator Andrew Bragg, Federal MP Sally Sitou, NSW Opposition Leader Mark Speakman SC MP, NSW Deputy Leader of the Opposition in the Legislative Assembly Ms Robyn Preston MP, The Hon Damien Tudehope MLC, Leader of the Opposition in the NSW Legislative Council, Councillor Robert Kok representing Sydney Lord Mayor Clover Moore AO, Mark Coure MP, Matt Cross MP, Kellie Sloane MP, City of Sydney Councillors Lyndon Gannon, Jess Miller and Matthew Thompson, Cr Barbara Ward, Deputy Consul-General Yu Jie, Vice Consul Yang Chenhao, Consul Chloe Quintin, Sneha Chatterjee (Department of Home Affairs), Gary Cowan (CEO, National Foundation for Australia-China Relations), Kim Pang (NFACR), Nick Kaldas APM (Chairperson, Multicultural NSW Advisory Board), Joseph La Posta (CEO, Multicultural NSW), Chief Supt. Darryl Dunbar (Area Commander, Metropolitan East, NSW Fire & Rescue), and Det. Supt. Martin Fileman APM (Commander of Sydney City PAC ).
We would also like to express our gratitude and special thanks to Uncle Michael West of the Metropolitan Local Aboriginal Land Council for his Welcome to Country, our MCs Kan Huang and Serena Tran, Millon Wines for their award-winning wines, our sponsors Community Bank Darling Square and David Sutantyo of Twelve Grains Capital, all our raffle prize donors, our singers Tamara Guo and Ian Epondulan, and the Guzheng music duo of Anders Leung and Michelle Ng.
Congratulations to this year’s three winners of the Haymarket Chamber of Commerce’s 2025 Year of the Snake Awards, being the Chinatown Action Committee (led by Catherine Chung, and the award was presented to Unis Goh as CAC’s representative) for their Community Group of the Year Award, and Mr King Fong OAM and Mr George Wing Kee who were each awarded the Chamber’s Community Lifetime Achievement Award.
Below are photos taken at the banquet by our photographers, Edwin Lais and Michael Thompson. You can also view some short videos on our Instagram page https://www.instagram.com/
