My dear CADS,
How are you all? Surviving the never-ending rain, I hope! At our recent CADS lunch for February, I was reminded of what being a member of CADS is all about. We had some members coming along who hadn’t been there for quite some time, along with some new members, and the atmosphere in the bar beforehand was just so special. There was
friendship and warmth and fun in abundance. If you haven’t come along for a while, please join us soon. You won’t be disappointed!
Our speaker at the February lunch was a real sensation. Brad Vanstone is the co-founder of Willicroft, initially a creator of vegan cheese and now vegan butter. Brad knew his topic extremely well, handled all sorts of difficult questions, and was quite an inspirational speaker. He brought full size samples of the vegan butter for all the guests. Many of us had questions about whether this was an adequate substitute for baking purposes. Louise Hunter has already used her sample to make scones and reports that it is a super substitute! In previous newsletters I mentioned that there is a crowdfunding opportunity with Willicroft https://willicroft.com/crowdfunder and if any of you are interested, Brad asks that you contact him directly on brad@willicroft.com.
For stockists in the Netherlands for Willicroft’s products please use this link. https://willicroft.com/our-stockists
CADS Society News
Pete Molloy has decided to resign from the CADS Board. Pete has not enjoyed good health recently and although thankfully he is feeling a lot better, he is not able to devote time to CADS, so will step down. I would like to thank Pete for his great contribution to CADS and wish him well on his further recovery. With Dee stepping down as Secretary and Peter Valentine wanting to step down as Treasurer, along with Pete Molloy’s resignation, we are therefore left with several opportunities on the CADS Board. At the end of
the day, this is a social business networking club, so none of the roles are particularly onerous but it would be very helpful if some of you could please come forward, to assist in the running of our lovely club!
Member News
As some of you will know, in her spare time Jenny Zonneveld does sculpting in stone. She will be exhibiting her work in April and invites you to visit. The exhibition is in the popup gallery in Mijdrecht, Lindeboom 3. Open from 12:00 to 16:00 on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays* in April. * Except 27 April as that is Kings Day! Please contact Jenny (translatext@gmail.com) if you wish to visit outside these opening times. For a preview,see https://www.translatext.nl/beelden/
Annual CADS agenda
This might be tempting fate, but we seem to be getting the right level of speakers at our monthly lunches, as demonstrated by the more regular, higher attendance levels. This has led me to think of other things that we could do as a club. John Cameron-Webb has set a high-level precedent with his weekends at the Battlefields, but I wonder if there are other activities we could organise.
Here are some ideas:
• Wine tasting (in the NL, or on a weekend tour)
• Gin tasting
• Garden tour at somewhere like Hortus Leiden
• Joint event with the Anglo-Netherlands Society
• Golden Jubilee Ball (we were 50 years old in 2021and couldn’t celebrate because of COVID)
Could you please have a think on what you would like to see in the CADS annual agenda and come back to me with your ideas? I’m excited to get organising!
See our events page for the latest schedule of events for your agendas. Many of you are super busy so please put ALL these dates in your diary NOW! Please remember that the March meeting is a THURSDAY dinner so that the members of CADS who have real jobs can get to a meeting every now and then! You will see that there are a few speaking opportunities in the calendar. Peter Smethurst has taken on the responsibility of sourcing speakers, so if you have any ideas or would like to make a presentation yourself, please get in touch with Peter.
