A fundraising record for the Chinese Museum!

On the evening of 27 October, the Chinese Museum held its Chinese Australian Champions 2023 Fundraising Dinner at the Sofitel Hotel. 

The event was attended by 240 Museum supporters who came together to work towards the Chinese Museum’s far-reaching ambition - to create an expanded first-class Chinese Australian museum for Melbourne and Australia. The Museum will continue to advocate for social inclusion and equality for our Chinese Australian community which represents 5.5% of the Australian population - as part of an Australian multicultural society of 270 ancestries that strives to be strong, united and successful.

In attendance was Victorian Minister for Multicultural Affairs, Ingrid Stitt MP; Deputy Lord Mayor of Melbourne, Cr Nicholas Reece; and Song Chongsheng, Vice Consul of Consulate General of the People’s Republic of China in Melbourne. 

Our Chinese Australian Champions are those who generously provided items to our auction where the proceeds raised for each item were donated to the Museum. Our Champions contributed over $67,000 worth of auctioned items on the Night. 

The Chinese Australian Champions for 2023 are: CCCAV - Jimmy Jian Min Li | Villa Found - James Nie | Hungry Panda - Kitty Lu | Moutai – Dan Zhou | Simon Fan | John Young | Hong Si | Ada Wang | Ming Dining – Tony Yen | Anne Pang Self Defence – Anne Pang | George Yeung | Rare Casks Society - Cavan Wee | Riverlee | Viceta Wang | Jasbe Petroleum – Jason Be | Landream – Kevin Li | BEKL – Katherine Liu | Susan Gin

A special thanks goes to artist John Young for providing the painting that was sold for $22,000, calligrapher Ada Wang who provided four paintings that sold for $9,188 and to artist Hong Si for providing his painting that was purchased by Werner Liu for $6,900. Their collective contribution from these three artists amounted to 57% of the value of auction items sold. 

Particular mention also goes to Raoul Salter, our auctioneer who turned our auction into a successful and entertaining event! Others who also made the night a success were the Chinese Museum Building Committee, the Museum staff and our dedicated volunteers. 

We were also supported by Creative Australia through Plus1 matching funding grant for $50,000. Together with ticket sales and donations we raised a total of $130,631 on the night. 

For all those who attended, thank you for coming contributing to the night and I hope we can arrange a bigger event in 2024!

This event is sponsored by: