“We are not a select group and we don’t have closed doors”
Andrea Mansfield, President of the ILCM
If you think that the International Ladies Club of Macau can only mean tea, gossip and shopping, think again. Now that it’s celebrating its 25th anniversary, the ILCM has raised throughout its existence, more than MOP 5 million for charity and also works as a prime source of support for new people in town. Just give it a try, says its president Andrea Mansfield.
In a time where men and women work equally hard all over the world, “Ladies Cub” is a name with a bad reputation, associated with times of a lazy, often colonial existence, where well-to-do women kill their free time - too many formalities, too little substance.
“I suppose that there is a huge amount of people who think that that’s what we are about and what we do”, recognizes current ILCM president Andrea Mansfield, “Yes, there is a big, strong social emphasis, that’s what we are about: the fun, the friendship and the fundraising. But I would say that half of the membership work hard on either the community service or the fundraising for the charities we support,” she stresses.
Founded in 1982 by Brenda Histed, the wife of the then president of CTM, the club has had since its very beginning, this double vocation of bringing together women from different nationalities and walks of life, and a strong emphasis on helping the disadvantaged in Macau. It became a non-profit charitable organization in 1984 and since then has been supporting around 20 different charities. From abandoned babies and children institutions, to others that take care of the handicapped and the elderly, the scope is vast. The ILCM operates mainly in Macau, but it also supports projects in China, related to the caring for and education of homeless children.
All of this is based on voluntary work, and many of the members not only help to raise money, but also take part in community service, reading to children or helping to take care of babies in the orphanage. It’s a vital help for many of these institutions which would otherwise lack the money to do their jobs properly. And the government is not always there. “I think that things have grown so quickly and Macau’s circumstances and the make-up of the society has changed so much that the government is trying to keep up, but it is still a little bit behind,” says Andrea Mansfield. The ILCM relies a lot on what Andrea calls “serious fundraisers”: the Melbourne Cup and their annual charity ball. The latter this year raised no less than MOP660, 000. But she’s quick to point out that the ILCM is not a constant “show me the money” club, an approach which would eventually scare members away.
There’s more than charity in the club and if you are an expat who has just arrived in Macau with no connections, no Cantonese to speak, and no idea where you can find the basics, Andrea promises that the ILCM is a perfect first port of call.
Support, Networking and Friendship
Macau for expat beginners can be daunting. It’s not only the different
language and culture. Many women who arrive in the SAR are not entitled to a blue card like their working husbands. And
that makes life even harder as Andrea herself found when she came, following her husband Greg, an executive at the Venetian. “I’d been working for 24 years before I came to Macau and it shocked me that I couldn’t have a bank account in my name, I couldn’t have a credit card in my name, and I couldn’t connect the phone. I had never heard of this system before,” she recalls.
Work is only possible if the prospective employer is prepared to sponsor a non-resident. But according to her experience, few professional, family women regret this forced break. “A lot of women to whom I speak, welcomed the change and embraced it because it has given them the luxury to do things as simple as volunteering at school, to be able to do reading, and to be able to take the kids to the school and pick them up,” she says.
“That’s why some of them feel that they need to give back to the country, what the country gave to them. That’s why a lot of us are giving back,” she concludes.
Working together for the betterment of the community inevitably brings the members closer. Andrea says that strong friendships have been established. “By being in a new country, quicker friendships are formed than maybe back in your own country. You have no one, so you need to get out there, you need to meet some people and form some relationships,” she explains.
The ILCM certainly foments many moments to socialize.
“Spotlight the Chef” is an opportunity to taste the fine cuisine that Macau has to offer. Then there’s the coffee mornings on the first Thursday of every month, which usually gathers young mums and ladies with no work, and every last Friday night of the month, it’s time for drinks, an event very popular among working members, male and female.
How about Men?
Yes, men are actually welcome to join the ILCM and these drinks actually help everybody to network a bit, business cards are swapped, thanks to the ladies’ club. “Women do great networking, they do,” concludes Andrea. The club now has 226 members, and according to its
statistics, an annual growth rate of 21%. The new members’ turnover is around 56% a year, replacing 23% that leave after finishing their commissions. Most of them are between 30 and 49 years old and married. In terms of nationalities, the world is pretty much covered: Australia, USA, Portugal, and also UK, New Zealand, Brazil, Malaysia, France and Mozambique, among others. Everyone is welcomed and the only requirement is to speak English, the lingua franca of the club. “We are not a select group and we don’t have closed doors,” Andrea stresses.
The annual fee costs MOP500.
For this Australian wedding coordinator, the club has been (for now) a full time job that has actually helped her to integrate with the local society, an important step as she and her husband have no immediate plans to leave Macau. “It’s home,’ she says, “I like to go to Hong Kong for the shopping and all of that, but it’s so good to get on the boat and get back here.”
She loves the city and the ILCM. In fact the only tense moment she has had since becoming president had to do with the prejudices and misconceptions that come with the name “ladies club”. The board of members decided to put to a vote the change of name, trying to get rid of the word “ladies”. International Club of Macau was one of the proposals.
But Andrea met fierce resistance. “They were passionate,” she recalls, “members that had left here five/six years ago but were still members and received our newsletter, wrote letters pointing out all the great things that the club had done, the charities, the support, the friendship, the fundraising and learning new skills, so it stayed the same.”
So, there’s nothing to be ashamed of. Just as in 1982, the ILCM continues to be the ladies club and proud of it.
For more information, check:
www.ilcm.org.mo
For enquiries and contacts, write to:
editor@ilcm.org.mo