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 this website. Our format has always been informal to attract a wide audience but our focus has been to give clear advice on themes 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. We are lucky to have a number of Sponsors offering our members free advice during the event – with a Thai law firm, two Thai Insurance companies, a Property Agency, a Bulk Refreshment delivery service and a visa / immigration consultancy. For details click HERE
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 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, which will assist the tourism industry.
Our club attendees can choose to enjoy a Breakfast Buffet prior to the start of each PEC event. 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.
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 meeting entry tickets and sales of club products with our accounts audited annually to the local authorities.
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, including Dutch, French, Finnish and Scandinavian language clubs. In the PEC we have 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 organization 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 programs 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.
A Brief History of PEC
It was March 2001 when PEC co-founders Pete Mills & Preben Hansen sent out their first email invitation to a few expats they knew to come to a meeting at the (then) Shenanigans Pub (below The Avani Hotel at Royal Garden Plaza) the venue later became Dicey Reilly’s Pub.
It was slow developing at first and at the second venue, the small Café New Orleans at Soi Pattayaland, there were only about 30 seats. We quickly grew when we moved in April 2002 to The Astoria Resort, next to the Dusit Thani off the Dolphin circle in north Pattaya, here we had 90 to 100 guests regularly. Subsequent moves included Green Tree Restaurant and Pub, Grand Sole Hotel, Mercure Hotel, Amari Hotel, Father Ray’s Foundation, and now The Baraquda Hotel on 2nd Road.
There has been a number of ‘expats clubs’ with our format of community information talks come into existence, particularly here in Pattaya, and some belong to the Association of Thailand Expats Clubs (ATEC) which PEC founded to help guide other clubs.
Pete Mills passed away, 5th March 2009, as did Co-founder Preben Hansen 19th June 2020.
PEC still echoes the legacy of our founders.
I think this success needs to be marked as an achievement. ‘Well Done’ to all those many people who together over this long period helped us to prosper.
(PEC Board of Trustees)
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