Remembering a lady (and gentleman) in red

by Martin Moodie |
The following two tabs change content below.
Martin Moodie

Martin Moodie

Martin Moodie is the Founder & Chairman of The Moodie Report.

I’ve never seen you looking so lovely as you did tonight,
I’ve never seen you shine so bright – Lady in Red

Blue was the colour of choice at The Moodie Report 10th Anniversary Charity Ball in Hong Kong last Friday – Moodie Blue of course.

But there were also some important splashes of red, in each case associated with absent friends.

Guests at Jonathan Holland & Associates’ table (below) wore red bow ties in memory of their great Welsh friend Alan Edwards, who passed away so tragically recently.

And the Lady in Red? That was Lynn Arce, DFS Vice President Global Creative and Consumer Marketing, who played a major role in the success of the event without even being there.

As I described in a previous Blog, (well, actually two previous Blogs) Lynn was a constant support in my struggle against cancer in 2010 and 2011. She knew just what to say and when to say it. Her messages were so uncannily timed it was as if she had a sixth sense of what I was going through.

After I emerged from my illness and decided to organise  the dinner in Hong Kong and help raise funds for a cause that DFS had championed – Hand in Hand for Haiti – Lynn (together with DFS Chairman Ed Brennan) threw her full support and energy behind the project.

And then something happened. Shortly afterwards, and unbeknown to most of her colleagues, Lynn was struck down by ovarian cancer, for which she has been receiving treatment over the past several months from Cedars-Sinai hospital in Los Angeles. Ovarian cancer is a particularly bad variant of the disease, affecting 230,000 women worldwide each year.  It’s notoriously hard to detect, is often therefore caught too late and its fatality rate is high.

The good news is that Lynn is pulling through with her trademark determination and courage. So much so that’s she’s already planning her next big event, dubbed Sleepwalkers around the World. It’s sponsored by DFS Group in support of Lynn and in support of Run for Her, a community of people around the world coming together to raise awareness and money for ovarian cancer.

Run for Her will be holding its 8th Annual Los Angeles 5K Run & Friendship Walk on 11 November and plans to raise a whole lot of money to fund research into curing and preventing this disease.

The Moodie Report is going to hit the streets on that date in support of Lynn, as will hundreds of the DFS team. We urge other members of the industry to mark their diaries and ‘Run for Her’ – her, of course in our case,  being Lynn.

As I announced at last week’s Charity Ball, The Moodie Report Foundation is proud to contribute US$50,000 to support Lynn’s and Cedars-Sinai’s efforts to help win the war against ovarian cancer. When I showed her picture (wearing a red dress before her illness), you could have heard a pin drop in the room. And many tears were shed.

For information or to donate please visit: http://runforher.kintera.org/faf/home/ccp.asp?ievent=1019200&ccp=625367

So on a night when we celebrated Moodie Blue, it was appropriate that we also honoured a lady and gentleman in red.