A huge congratulations goes out to Ozharvest, Mission Australia and Qantas for organising the inaugural CEO Cookoff held on Monday evening. It was a huge success with donations reaching close to $1 million dollars.
We arrived around 5:30pm to the St. Mary's Cathedral location being sectioned off from the public and a huge marquee, stage and tents established. As we registered and made our way to the tent allocated, the names of chefs from all around the country lined the tents; Maggie Beer, Bill Granger, Adam Liaw, Julie Goodwin and Neil Perry just to name a few.
I was allocated to work with Maggie Beer and George Columbaris (from Masterchef and the Press Club). Overwhelmed, a little daunted, and even a touch intimidated, I walked up to introduce myself to George who promptly put me on "potato" duty. I was to cut all potatoes to size as bevel the edges. Bevel? Really? ME? Details? Clearly, this was not my forte, but I was determined to be the best.
As I cut my potatoes with nervous hands, I was introduced to the rest of my team; Peter Maher - CEO of Macquarie Retail, Adrian Taylor, CEO of Charter Hall, Kerrie Mather, CEO of Sydney Airport amongst others.
In the adjoined tent we worked with Adam Liaw, Bill Granger
and Justin North - all incredibly inspiring chefs. Combined with the CEO of Optiver and IBM alongside my Telstra Businesswomen alumni Rachel Argaman (Toga Group), Emma Issacs (Business Chicks) , Annalise Law (the KangaGroup), Lisa Messenger (the Messenger Group) and others such as Jo Burston (Job Capital) and Leona Watson (Cheeky Food Group) - I was exhilarated.
I also had the pleasure of meeting Alan Joyce himself.
I believe him to be one of the most influential CEO's of the moment and his candour and personality was engaging and wonderfully grounded (no pun intended!). So much so, I provided him very direct feedback on the regular LAX leg of the Qantas connection to Canada I fly (I had the opportunity - I was NOT going to waste it) of which he returned with some fantastic news and results for the next 12 -14 months to change this. Clearly, I wasn't the first to mention it!
At around 6:30pm the one thousand homeless and less fortunate from charities all over the city were welcomed with cheers and clapping into the venue and allocated their proposed table.
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Us "chefs" and "cooks" quickly plated up our first course of mushroom soup which was predominantly pre-prepared and therefore all trade secrets were kept. Our tent became a hive of media and spectators with Matt Preston arriving in true cravat style.
Cameras, video cameras and journalists swarmed the tent as Maggie Beer ripped apart steak with her hands for all of us to taste - who was I to decline!
It was delicious.
Our main course consisted of my perfectly cut (if I do say so myself, even Matt Preston agreed!) potatoes baked and fried in butter (my trainer clearly would not agree with this menu), atop the potato a beef brisket sidelined with a divine cut of steak adorned with steamed shallots and pickled onions, wasabi paste and onion puree. I'm afraid most of it was prepared due to the numbers, however, I did learn how to make a quick wasabi vinaigrette from scratch - feel free to email me for details.
Karl Stefanovic kicked off the show with the Qantas choir singing " I still call Australia home".
Throughout the night, an opportunity to meet some of the CEO's, chefs, celebrity guests and of course our special guests of the night was welcomed. Some of the stories were of adversity, sadness, reflection but also of optimism. That's what Mission Australia and OzHarvest provides, is a chance to change their life.
Jimmy Barnes finished off the night with a rocking performance bringing the house down and everyone on the dance floor.
I finally got to sleep around midnight after reflecting on all of the excitement, passion, inspiration and enthusiasm for change and the positive impact each donation dollar had made.
If only for one night - people felt like celebrities - optimism overruled, the challenges of their lives put on hold - if only for an evening to know that people care and that we want to help, however and whenever we can.
I'm proud to have represented the over $6000 worth of donations provided to support the close to 1 million dollar result.
Congratulations to OzHarvest, Mission Australia and Qantas for an incredible initiative, one that I am very much looking forward to being a continuous contributor to in every which way.
Andrea Culligan
T:Acculligan
E: andrea@theunimailgroup.com
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