41 International presidents report – 41 Club Netherlands AGM

Once again, the Dutch 41 Club joined forces with LC and RT to delight us with a well-organised, very pleasant and dynamic triple AGM in the picturesque city of Leeuwarden, in the north of the Netherlands. The hotel they chose was perfect, with a large accessible car park, large and comfortable modern bedrooms, a top-floor bar with a view on the city skyline, a nice breakfast buffet, and a vast lobby in which the Saturday gala dinner took place.

The Friday night get-together party was intended as a small-scale French CNR, or an RT nations night, with local clubs presenting and offering their local delicacies at various food and drinks stalls set up all around the bar lobby. In the centre of the bar stood 4 large tables with French specialities including wines, cider and champagne, brought by the large French 41club delegation led by past national president Bruno Ciarelli and national IRO Michel Bourguet. All the other LC, RT, and local club stalls were around. Good food and volatile drinks were everywhere.

Friday night was a good opportunity to meet with the Roundtable family, notably Madjid Tunda, Sebation Walters and Alexandra Bennett, the LCI president. Member of my own club of Brussels were there too, with Patrick Wauthoz accompanying his wife, Clotilde, the newly elected national president of LC Belgium.

On Saturday, after a quick visit at the LC AGM together with Majid and Sebastion, respectively RTI président and vice-president of RTI, I joined the Dutch 41 Club in their dedicated meeting room for the 41 AGM. The Dutch association is still very young and in full growth. They still have less than 15 clubs, but already attract many international visitors. Naming all of them took a while. Countries represented included Belgium, Germany, France, Italy, Morocco, Sweden and Cyprus.

After the AGM lunch I had the pleasure of enjoying some quality time with both the RTI president and vice president. We spoke essentially of our collaboration in my Make a Tabler project, but also of the Tabler.world platform.

Then I met with the new Dutch board, who whom we discussed of the legalization of 41 international, the Make a Tabler project, and the integration of our possible communication platform : 41er.world. I also answered a few questions they had.

Afterwards I joined the Golden Stomach meeting during which we inducted the new Dutch IRO, Gilbert de Last. The Golden Stomach club is exclusively composed of National and past-national IROs and meets at AGMs and other international meetings.

The gala evening, again, united the three clubs with good feed, fellowship and good music. Jewels were passed on and the new board were presented to everyone.

On Sunday, I picked up Bob Standard, the Belgian 41 président after breakfast, drove him home, and rushed to Brussels to vote. Another weekend quickly gone…