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#TBT: Café Dudok Holiday Dinner
This weekend we’ll meet up again for our annual Holiday Dinner where members have a chance to wish each other a Happy New Year while enjoying a bite to eat together. For #ThrowbackThursday, here’s a look at gathering from 2016!
x—x—x—x—x—x
by Rick Tillman
16 Jan 2016. Once again, tíc has celebrated the holidays and rung in the new year how it should be done: with warm conversation, good food, and ample wine (not necessarily in that order). For January 2016, tíc in its infinite wisdom gathered at Café Dudok in the heart of Tilburg.
TIC & me
by Anne van Oorschot
The year was 1981 when I arrived in the Netherlands to join Hein – the love of my life! – and we lived in The Hague. While life in a foreign country is always a challenge, it is much easier in a city that is internationally oriented. As the Dutch governmental capital, The Hague has numerous international clubs, and I immediately joined the American Women’s Club (AWC) of The Hague. Here were a group of women who spoke my language, understood my bafflement at many Dutch customs, and missed family and friends as I did. Such a relief!!
As the years progressed, I learned Dutch, became more familiar with Dutch customs, had children, made friends, and moved a couple of times to different parts of the country…yet, I remained a member of the AWC. Even though I didn’t feel as lost as I once did, I still really enjoyed the social activities with “people like me”.
It was 2007 when Hein got a job as President of Tilburg University and we moved to Tilburg. While I remained a member of the AWC in The Hague, it was pretty far away and I missed a closer “expat contact”. Hein, who had always supported my activities in the AWC, realized there was nothing similair to help the many (250!) international employees of the University. “Why didn’t I start an international club here?” Why not indeed!
I started by making a 2 page questionnaire for expats to see if they would be interested in an international club and, if so, what they would like it to offer. I got a list of foreign based companies in the area from the BOM (Brabant Development Agency) and started calling to see if they had foreign employees. While most companies with expat employees were receptive to the idea of an international club as a plus for their employees, some were not. “We help our employees enough, they don’t need a club!”
Often no amount of reasoning would get through to these stubborn HR employees and once I bluntly asked who their expat employee should call on a Sunday afternoon if his cat was vomiting? There was silence on the other side of the line…”Aah, we’re closed on Sundays.” While there is a lot employers can do for international employees to help them get settled, an informal social network of other expats can help with the many small details of life in Tilburg. Also, no matter how nice Dutch colleagues are, they have their own family and friends and are not necessarily looking for more, outside of work.
I made appointments and set out for the many companies employing expats with questionnaires for their employees. I complied the results and was not surprised that there was a need for just such a club. There were many “official” details that needed to be taken care of: deciding on a name, writing the Constitution and By–laws for the club, finding a meeting location, arranging for publicity, finding sponsors, planning an initial meeting, getting 2 additional Board members, finding a notary to register TIC as a “vereniging” (association) and deciding on the first event. On March 30, 2008, TIC had a very well attended Open House at De Harmonie and our first members signed up…My TIC became Our TIC.
And here we are, 10 years later! TIC is steadily getting stronger and more anchored in the 
community, and while a lot of members have come and gone, there are more who are willing to help with the planning and running of the club. Thanks to social media campaigns on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn and Twitter, we are reaching more expats in the area and are able to enrich the international experience of our members. TIC is flourishing!
After 10 years on the Board as President and Secretary/Membership, I am so happy to see that there are many others who see the club as “Their TIC”; who pitch in to plan fun and interesting events, who attend events and make them successful, who share their national customs and foods, who are interested in getting to know other club members…who have made TIC into Our TIC! I feel confident about the club and secure in the knowledge that because the club is in many good hands, I can step back and let others take the lead. I will continue to organize the Book Club and Movie Night, and maybe I’ll be back on the Board again in the future – who knows? But for now I am happy to be just a member of Our TIC.
Of course, I still hope to see you at a TIC event soon!
All the best, Anne
Memory Lane: 2014 TIC Annual Holiday Dinner
Our 2018 Holiday Dinner is just around the corner. Here’s a quick look back at our dinner from 2014!
18 January 2014
by Patricia Gonzalez
pictures courtesy of Patricia Gonzalez
January 18 at the Heuvel might have seemed like your average Saturday night; golden light making gezellig restaurants glow, music wafting from bars and good-natured chatter spilling out onto the street. But, it wasn’t the typical weekend crush and the faces that framed the tables in the window of L’Orangerie were not your usual Tilburgse crowd. It was TIC’s Annual Holiday Dinner where thrown into the mix were twenty-two Chinese, Japanese, German, Canadian, American, Estonian, French, Filipino, Lebanese and yes, even Dutch TIC members.
Over unusual pairings of applesauce and frites, cauliflower and crudités, loempia and brie, we shared stories about how we spent the Christmas break. Members who had only just recently moved to the Netherlands talked about how they were settling in to life and work in Tilburg. Members who hadn’t been to a TIC event in a while shared what they had been up to. And, as often
happens when people from different parts of the world come together, we laughed about the things that get lost in translation: like how difficult it is to leave a message on an answering machine when the instructions only come in Dutch and why applesauce and fries go together.
Toward the end of the evening, there was even a little gift giving with Anne making sure all the members present had received their TIC umbrellas and copies of “Touch of Tilburg.” It definitely wasn’t Christmas the way any of us traditionally celebrate it but, as we walked home with the “Christmasy” flavor of nutmeg from the Speculoos mousse still on our tongues, memories of pleasant conversation and promises to get together with new friends, we agreed it was a wonderful way to end the holiday season and start the new year.
#Tilburg #Brabant #Expat #International #Expat Life #Korteheuvel
Dutch Elections: Why Nexit didn’t happen
by Sondra Grace
On March 8th , shortly before the Dutch were due to go to the polls, Hein van Oorschot, formerly the
Mayor of Delft, gave an excellent TIC Talk on the Dutch electoral process. Today, the day following
Theresa May’s comeuppance, here’s what I remember: The main law making body, the House of
Representatives, is the Tweede Kamer (Second Chamber). Representatives are not elected to it by
gerrymandered district like in GB and the US, but instead nationwide and at large. You choose a
candidate from a tiny-tiny- print list, although in fact, your vote will go to the political party of which the candidate is a member – except in the case of Wilders as he is the sole member of the Party for Freedom (pretty name, not so pretty party). All the votes for every qualifying candidate are tallied. This total is divided by 150, the number of seats in the chamber, with each party receiving its proportionate share. The parties send the representatives from their list in the order they appear on the Ballot. (There are
complex rules to determine who gets leftover votes — there being no partial seat.)
Unlike the British first-past- the-post system and the American Electoral College one, both of which are virtual road blocks to smaller political parties, the Dutch proportional system encourages a proliferation of parties. Last March there were 28 of them on the ballot, including ‘50 PLUS’ that looks after the interests of pensioners, and ‘D66’ founded by a group of young intellectuals. (Much to my chagrin there is no party for pensioned intellectuals.) With such an extensive menu of parties to choose from, it is almost impossible for any one party to get a majority sufficient for passing laws by itself, so the parties have to negotiate with one another to form a coalition. The bargaining typically proceeds at a leisurely pace—talks are still going on now, three months after the election. Winner-take- all systems lead to things like Brexit, but the need to form a coalition and to then to keep it intact by getting along with the other partners means that in the Netherlands extreme parties are usually frozen out. The chances of Nexit were probably about the same as in this age of global warming there ever being another Elf-Steden Tocht ice skating race, that is, when Hell freezes over.
TIC Annual Holiday Dinner
18 January 2014
by Patricia Gonzalez
pictures courtesy of Patricia Gonzalez
January 18 at the Heuvel might have seemed like your average Saturday night; golden light making gezellig restaurants glow, music wafting from bars and good-natured chatter spilling out onto the street. But, it wasn’t the typical weekend crush and the faces that framed the tables in the window of L’Orangerie were not your usual Tilburgse crowd. It was TIC’s Annual Holiday Dinner where thrown into the mix were twenty-two Chinese, Japanese, German, Canadian, American, Estonian, French, Filipino, Lebanese and yes, even Dutch TIC members. (more…)
Tilburg International Club 