My dear CADS,
How are you? I hope that you are all doing well. I must warn you that despite or maybe because of this chilly June reminding me of British summers from my childhood, I am in a wonderful ‘so proud to be British’ mood, and this is very evident in this newsletter. In the past week, I have been glued to the BBC watching all of the festivities in the UK, and I also have been very lucky to take part in a few celebratory events here in the NL.
It all started with an invitation from the UK Ambassador to the NL, Joanna Roper CMG, and her husband, Thomas Drew CMG, to a celebration of the birthday and Platinum Jubilee of HM Queen Elizabeth II. This was held at the Ambassador’s Residence in Den Haag on June 1. I was very proud to be representing CADS at such a super event. The sun was shining, and we were served English sparkling wine in the gorgeous gardens, and we also had a very British afternoon tea with cucumber sandwiches and the newly created Jubilee Pudding. An excellent afternoon!
This was followed up by another invitation from the British Embassy, this time to make a video to be presented to Her Majesty! The idea behind the video was that the Embassy wanted to showcase their valued partners in the Netherlands using social media. Please find below a link to the video on the British Embassy’s twitter account. I was wearing the CADS scarf in the video, and I have to confess that I was a bit worried as it looks like I have a Russian flag round my neck!
I also held a small gathering at my home for some fellow Brits in Amsterdam. All the guests were dressed in red, white and blue and my house was decked in Union Jacks.
Another time I was representing CADS was when I was asked to contribute to the British Council ‘s celebrations earlier in the year. I contributed to their 75 NL-UK stories to celebrate the 75th anniversary of the British Council in the Netherlands. I have mentioned this before, but was contacted again this week to say that printed copies of the full collection of stories have now been handed over to both Joanna Roper, UK Ambassador to the Netherlands in The Hague, as well as Karel van Oosterom, Dutch Ambassador to the UK in London. As you may have seen, the CADS story is published here.
And finally both Mike Waters and I have been representing CADS as we supported both the GNE Nuffic Young English Speaker’s and Young English Writer’s Awards. Mike was the chair of the panel of judges for the Speakers and I was the Chair for the Writers. The winner of the Dutch National Speaker’s award, Quinten Jakobs, went on to reach the final of the whole English Speaking Union competition and got down to the last 6! As is customary I will be inviting Quinten to come to a CADS lunch later in the year for us to hear his speech.
Louise Hunter has asked me to tell you about the latest production from STET The English Theatre, of ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’. It will be on 8 & 9
September 2022 at Raadhuis de Paauw, Den Haag. This is an event that many CADS members usually go along to. It is always fun to share a drink and a picnic
before the show.
Our next lunch meeting is a cruise on Friday June 17th, departing from close to Central Station at 12 noon for two hours. A two-course lunch with wine will be served as we cruise around Amsterdam’s beautiful canals. The cost will be €70 per person which is great value given that we normally spend €55 at the KIGC and on the cruise we get a salon boat and skipper included! Please sign up now for the cruise – it will be such a treat to be re-living one of CADS great traditions.
Looking forward to seeing many of you on the cruise!
Warm regards,
Jennie