My dear CADS,

How are you all? Hopefully you are comfortable in the heat. I am someone that really loves the sunshine and heat, so to be honest I am enjoying this warm weather, but I am also quite conflicted. I have just heard on the news that June is already the hottest month ever recorded (in the UK), and we are only half way through the month. The speed of climate change with these negative effects are certainly dramatic and the repeated alarms ever more prescient! Our speaker for the June CADS lunch echoed these concerns. Captain Alex Cornelissen, the CEO of Sea Shepherd Global gave us a very interesting presentation on the work that his organisation carries out to protect the marine environment globally. Please look at their website to read about the full extent of their operations: www.seashepherdglobal.org.

One topic in Alex’s presentation that was particularly interesting was Sea Shepherd’s work to protect octopuses from illegal fishing practices off the Tuscan coast. Local fishermen use the loathsome “pot” technique: a single nylon line equipped with hundreds of cylindrical traps open on one side. These pots, disguised on the muddy seabed, look like safe shelters for the octopuses, where they can live and lay eggs. The fishermen just need to pull up the line and empty the pots each time they find their prey inside. Fishing laws limit the number of traps allowed on each boat (i.e., 1250 pots), and forbid leaving fishing gear resting on the seabed, however Sea Shepherd crew witnessed:
– octopuses lured to the traps even during the designated biological rest period
– catches exceeding the allowed quotas
– fishing gear left on the seabed all year round.

Thanks to their ongoing collaboration with the Financial Guard and the Coast Guard, the Sea Shepherd crew have been able to begin retrieving and removing all of the gear. To date they have removed over 7500 pots from the sea, handing them over to the Financial Guard, in the largest seizure of octopus fishing traps ever in the Mediterranean Sea, saving thousands of octopus lives.

Captain Alex is off to Italy in July to kick off the next stage of the Italian Octopus campaign and they have just started their second year of a similar campaign in Greece. Many of our members who attended the lunch were keen to make a donation to their cause, or to buy some of the merchandise available on the website. If you would like to read more about the different campaigns or make a donation please click on this link:
https://www.seashepherdglobal.org/latest-news/protecting-octopuses/

Throughout my time as Chair of our wonderful society I have been banging on about raising the profile of the “C” in CADS – COMMERCIAL Anglo Dutch Society. I have had some recent feedback that some of our members feel the same – I am notalone! So, I am proposing 2 activities in this regard. Firstly, I would like to have a section in this monthly newsletter where members can ‘market’ themselves, their ideas, their products, their business – basically use the newsletter as free promotion for their commercial activities. All the member needs to do is send me what they would like included in a future edition of Greetings from the Chair.

As an example, here is some ‘marketing’ about my company. One of my businesses offers executive coaching and mentoring and currently has clients in NL, UK, Germany, and Italy. I have recently added to the product offerings from the business as I have recently qualified as a Celebrant. This means that I am now trained to create and deliver many different ceremonies of celebration. My portfolio includes ceremonies such as weddings, commitment ceremonies, renewals of vows, anniversary and naming ceremonies and of course funerals. I offer these services in English, across the EU and the UK. Please pass on my details to anyone that you hear of in need of celebration services!

I know that amongst our membership we have so many commercial activities which would be of interest to the rest of us, so please give it a go. Just send me text and an image around the same size as my example above, and I will post it in this newsletter (first come, first served).

The speaker that was booked for September has pulled out already, so my second idea is that one or more of our members take on the speaking opportunity for the
September dinner (Thursday September 14th at the KIGC) to promote their businesses to the rest of us. Please let me know ASAP if you would like to make a presentation on the 14th September.

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.

Our next meeting will be the boat trip on Friday 18th August. Details will follow shortly. Please note that the boat will offer protection from the elements (rain or sun!) and is big enough for movement around the boat during the trip. You are not tied to one table and can mingle easily. Guests are very welcome!