My dear CADS,
I hope you have enjoyed the various public holidays we have had here in the Netherlands recently. The temperatures so far this year have certainly made it difficult to tell that it’s Summer, but the days are getting longer now, and when the sun does come out it’s really rather nice; so hopefully this is a good omen for the Summer ahead!
Saturday, May 6th saw the UK celebrate the coronation of King Charles III. Of course, being the party girl, I celebrated in style at mine, hosting a Coronation Brunch with my royalist friends (Anglo and Dutch!). I say “brunch”, but the last guests left at 10.30pm, so it turned out to be a 12-hour party! That’s probably a lot longer than many of the celebrations in the UK!

At the CADS May lunch, we toasted the newly crowned King with a nice glass of bubbly, so the occasion certainly did not go unmarked here in the Netherlands! And here’s some more gossip. Did you see that Charles ‘sports’ a ‘CADS’ tie on occasion? Wonder if we could boast ‘by royal appointment!’ on our website….

Our May meeting was again very well attended – we are definitely building up our numbers. The speaker was Berit Lewis, a Danish mindfulness instructor with a particular focus on the older person and how one can reframe to a more positive psychology about growing old. She has recently published a book called ‘Ageing Upwards’, and the CADS members liked her subject matter so much that she managed to sell over 20 copies of the book at our lunch!!

If anyone would like to buy further copies they’re available on Amazon.

At the May lunch, one of our new members Michael J Wyler gave us a short self- introduction as is customary at the CADS lunches. It was very interesting to hear about his philanthropic efforts, which include a focus on Alzheimer’s disease and prostate cancer.

Last month in this newsletter, I was able to announce 3 new members, and I am delighted to report that another 3 people have either found us on our re-vamped website, or heard about us on the grapevine, and then they have all attended a lunch, and still want to sign up. I’ll introduce them properly to you when they pay their membership invoice. ☺

Please note that CADS will take a short break in July for one month only. There will be NO JULY MEETING and NO JULY NEWSLETTER. This is different from the calendar that was published before, but it turned out that not one of the Board could make the July meeting and when we asked for a show of hands at the last lunch to see if anyone else was intending to come along – it was a big NO! This is of course totally understandable as we are all doing our best to catch up on delayed travel plans from 2020, and 2021!

Our next meeting will be a lunch on Friday June 16th at the KIGC in Amsterdam. We will have a bumper session with two speakers before our Summer recess. Before lunch we will hear from Captain Alex Cornelissen – CEO of Sea Shepherd Global re protection of the marine environment globally, and then after lunch, Brad Vanstone, the founder of Willicroft, the award-winning Vegan cheese shop, will tell us all the story of his business success.

Looking forward to seeing many of you on Friday June 16th for lunch at the K.I.G.C.