In the glamorous setting of the Monte Casino Ballroom, the 2024 SAIMC gala dinner kicked off with delicious purple cocktails in the foyer, and a soundtrack of ‘oohs and aahs’ at the array of beautiful and interesting masks adorning the guests in keeping with the theme of Masquerade Ball. There were batmen, rabbits, and devils, some were scary and industrial, others were decorated with glitter, glamour, silver, gold, diamante and feathers, and there was even a COVID mask, as everybody stretched their imaginations and played out their fantasies through their attire. Guests were dressed to the nines, and there was an air of excitement and anticipation of a great fun evening to come. As everyone entered the venue they were met by the soothing sounds of jazz from the Julia Lamberti Quartet, who played during the starters and main course.
The proceedings were led and kept well on track by MC, Chad Andrews, managing director of Lapp, who was witty, professional and fun. As the objective of the evening was to meet up with friends old and new, the formalities were kept to a minimum, starting off with a welcome from chair of the SAIMC board, Marc Van Pelt, who wished everybody a splendid evening after giving an optimistic view of the automated world of the future with SAIMC making significant waves within it. CEO, Johan Maartens was next, giving some insight into the structure of the SAIMC, and it was his honour to hand out Didactic certificates (see his CEO’s letter www.instrumentation.co.za/22944r). The formalities ended with a short address by Carol Weaving, managing director of RX, who thanked the industry for their support of AATF and reinforced the importance of the relationship between the SAIMC and RX. Carol added further sparkle to the evening (on top of her gorgeous gold dress) by giving everybody in the audience tickets to the upcoming ComiCon event.
Our entertainment for the evening was illusionist, Larry Soffer. Once he took the stage the ‘oohs and aahs’ escalated to exclamations of delight and disbelief at his magic. Trying to do justice to it in an article like this would be an injustice, but suffice it to say that he lived up to his mantra of inspiring the audience to ‘believe to see’ instead of ‘seeing to believe’. It could only be described as mind-blowing, and nobody came away disappointed at this fitting ending to a wonderful evening.
The SAIMC would like to thank all the table sponsors: Proconics, RJ Connect, ifm, Lapp, Iritron, Allpronix, Comtest, Adeptly Africa, SAIMC Johannesburg, Creative Plastics, Eagle Technik, MESA Africa Computer Engineering Advisory Council to SAIMC, and SECO Process Instrumentation. Additional thanks go to those companies who took specific sponsorships.
To enjoy all the photos from the evening please visit: https://johanspiesfotografiebk.shootproof.com/gallery/25276966/
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