The PATTAYA EXPATS CLUB is the first and largest live advice and information service for foreigners in Thailand. PEC celebrated its 19th Year of advice forums in 2020; established in March 2001 with the motto ‘Expats Helping Expats – to live safely and legally in Thailand.’ The PEC meets every Friday morning at Amari Hotel, Pattaya Beach Road with news and guest speakers from 1130am and breakfast buffet from 10.00am. All Nationalities are Welcome. Our aim is to provide foreign visitors and residents with good quality advice to comply with the laws of the Kingdom, to make their stay here safe and to be a channel for local Thai authorities to the foreign community, plus charitable efforts to the community.
The PEC became the first of its kind in Thailand, when founded in Pattaya, growing rapidly through regular weekly meetings and via thousands of subscribers to its E-newsletters it promotes Pattaya worldwide through our website, www.pattayaexpatsclub.info. Our format has always been informal to attract a wide audience but our focus has been to give clear advice on theme’s which are important and practical to help foreigners and their families stay safely and legally in the Kingdom, to meet new friends in the community and to interact in a more culturally sensitive way with all Thais. Our lobby area has display tables from Thai companies (our Sponsors) offering our members free advice – with a Thai law firm, a Thai hospital health check desk, two Thai Insurance companies and a visa / immigration consultancy.
We provide practical information on Thai Law, constant advice on applying for visa’s and keeping them up to date, how to safely and legally own a house, a car, a condominium or motorcycle. There are feature talks given by notable Thai Doctors to encourage good health and from Insurance experts to ensure foreigners have adequate protection for medical needs, home contents, vehicles etc. We aim to give visitors to Pattaya of all Nationalities a better understanding of the Thai culture, so foreign residents can better integrate into their adopted second home here in Pattaya. We feel this can be of benefit to prevent crime and assist Thai authorities with an additional channel of communication for local civic news, and which will assist the tourism industry.
Our club members enjoy a breakfast buffet at the Friday meetings. The featured speakers give big screen presentations from the Club laptop computer / digital projector set up. Members ask questions and receive answers from experts in their field such as real estate agents, travel agents, bankers, investment consultants, hotel owners, hospitals, school headmasters, lawyers. There are some fun items too – movie people talking about their film careers, ‘world exclusives’ of major book authors who come to launch new novels in front of our audience, plus best beaches and islands to visit in the region. To make our live meetings far more widely received by the home expat TV audience we have a generous regular coverage given us by Pattaya People Media Group TV Channel to report the PECs weekly features. PPMG news-magazine gives us 2 full page coverage as do local media to promote the club speakers and activities. We have cooperation of local Thai authorities to help us provide valuable information to members.
We have a non-profit style 20 page Constitution document to regulate ourselves to a high standard. To report our finances legally we have a Ltd Company format transparently showing our cash handling from memberships and hotel entry tickets and sales of club products with accounts displayed monthly on our website. Perhaps the only Club in Pattaya to have a legal format entity.
Of course our advice and information format has long since been copied by newer organisations formed around Thailand and in Pattaya. Similar clubs have formed following the great success of our style of networking with expats. Among those newer advice clubs is ‘The Pattaya City Expats Club’ which incorporated itself 23 July 2003 with a Constitution supplied by the PEC. Others which have formed since the original PEC have included Dutch, French, Finnish and Scandinavian language clubs. In the PEC we have a German language, French & Finnish sister clubs. One of the PEC’s tasks, as Mother Club in Thailand for a range of expat advice clubs has been to assist new clubs around the Kingdom with model Constitution documents in Pattaya, Chiangmai, Koh Samui and Udon Thani. We formed an umbrella organisation for linked clubs called ATEC (Association of Thailand Expats Clubs.)
Our aim is to continue to provide a good and worthwhile informal service to assist foreigners and we have several Telephone Help Volunteers. We aim to give club members a clear understanding and awareness of their responsibilities in staying in Thailand. It has also given us, in many years operationally, opportunity to make useful donations to Thai charitable causes here in Pattaya and by our foreigners awareness programmes to be a small contribution to assist the Thai authorities to reduce and prevent crime. We hope this is a useful service to have in the region with the biggest foreign population of tourist visitors and expats. We have been consistent in these aims throughout the years and by this hope to draw attention of Thai civic leaders to our service. We hope to be of assistance to Thai authorities and to forge even better links in the future.
To respond to this statement, please contact PEC.
[email protected]
For more information call:
Dan: 092 476 1032.
Brian: 089 604 3646.
