Last week, tucked deep inside the Fox Studios lot in a cavernous art deco building built in 1928 for the Sydney Showground, 500 guests assembled for the 2019 Gold Dinner. Among them, some of the most discreet, private and wealthy individuals who call the eastern suburbs home (as well as some from the north shore and as far afield as Melbourne).

Again, mystery was in the air.

The question on everyone’s lips — would newly-minted Gold committee chair Monica Saunders-Weinberg and her partly reconstituted team of members deliver an event as moving, glamorous, and most importantly lucrative as had come before?

The answer, we can report, is a resounding ‘yes’. The gravitas on the guest list surpassed expectations. Some of the nation’s most influential and fascinating leaders in the fields of finance, film, tech, media, fashion, politics and property dug deep for charity, raising over $3.1 million “and counting”.

As singer Amy Shark confessed during her pitch-perfect numbers, “my manager said there’s very important people here … so don’t mess it up”.

Saunders-Weinberg, unaccustomed to public speaking, roused the crowd, which included one or two fellow billionaires. Speaking candidly as a mother and a peer, she said she had seen “more joy in the corridors of Sydney Children’s Hospital than at most stuffy dinners”. She implored the guests; “stretch past your capacity and get comfortable with being uncomfortable” and finished by quoting her late father, philanthropist and property investor John Saunders, who said “he who has health has hope and he who has hope has everything”.

The emotional highlight of the night was the story of Patricia and Peter Knight who told in their own words of their teenage boy Charlie’s sudden and utterly unexpected brain haemorrhage at school in Coonabarabran, in country NSW. He was helicoptered to Sydney Children’s Hospital where he remained for more than five months.

The nightmare his parents endured was clear to everyone in the room — as was their joy and relief the moment Charlie appeared to take the stage and thank the vast team of hospital medics and support staff who saved his life and taught him to walk and talk again.

The smooth running of the gold-themed night was due to committee member Mikey Filler’s company, Team Event, and the Foundation staff who live and breathe the cause, helmed by CEO Nicola Stokes and director of development Susan Wynne.

Guillaume Brahimi oversaw flawless execution of the dinner.

When the formalities were over, a dance floor and nostalgia-inducing dessert bar magically appeared. Saunders-Weinberg declared funds raised had surpassed $3m — pledged toward the cost of ventilators, travel cots, bed equipment, fellowships and research — and gold confetti rained from the ceiling amid cheers of joy.

Alongside the Committee (pictured right) notable guests included Graham and Amanda Richardson, Tim and Sarah Minchin, Wentworth MP Dave Sharma and Rachel Lord, Stuart Gergor, Edwina McCann and David Basha, Deborah Symonds-O’Neil and Ned O’Neil, and Mark Freeman. All received gift of gold dice from sponsor ABC Bullion, symbolising, said Saunders-Weinberg, “the randomness of life”and a reminder to some of Sydney’s most powerful people of our collective “vulnerability”.