March hospitality with Carl Honoré

At our hospitality morning on March 9th we all took a welcomed break from our busy schedules and learned to embrace our inner Tortoise with speaker Carl Honoré, the best-selling author and advocate of the slow movement. Carl shared with us humorous anecdotes and assured the forty women in attendance that less is more and slow is the new fast.

Carl with Patty Bell, CWC Vice-President

In a culture of instant messaging, speed yoga, and drive-through funerals, it is almost impossible to take the time to smell the roses. As a former speedaholic himself, Carl realized it was time to put on the breaks when he started trying to condense his son’s bedtime stories into one minute. Since Carl published his book “In Praise of Slow: How a Worldwide Movement is Challenging the Cult of Speed”, which reveals the dangers of living life in fast-forward, the slow movement has been gaining speed. Slow cities have been cropping up around the world, as well as movements in slow food, slow sex, slow exercise, slow medicine, and even slow technology. Big companies are starting to embrace slowness to allow their workers to be more creative and efficient and last year Harvard University sent their incoming freshman class a letter with one piece of advice, to slow down.

In 2005, Carl published "Under Pressure". As well as outlining all the pressures put on parents and teachers to speed children along and grow up fast, he makes the case for slowing things down: letting children be children just a little bit longer. Carl recently wrote on his blog that Canada's Globe and Mail newspaper said that 'Under Pressure" is ...“A look at the mismanagement of the contemporary child: overprotected, overindulged, over-stimulated. An indispensable, anecdotal, comnmonsensical guide to why our kids are depressed, lazy and fat, and what we can do about it.”

We were thrilled to have Carl with us for such a stimulating and thought provoking morning. We all learned that we need to think more about why we go so fast, whether it's good-fast or bad-fast, or good-slow or bad-slow. We're hoping to put just a little bit more of that good-slow into our lives!

Submitted by Laurel Steuernagel

Wine tasting with Marie-France

Just before Valentine's Day, a group of CWC members and their partners, husbands and friends enjoyed a fabulous wine tasting event, organised by Marie-France and her husband Eduardo. What a great time we had at the home of Harry and Renée-Marie! The setting was splendid, our hosts perfect and we, the guests, a friendly and keen-to-learn group.

We discovered many new wines, but the highlight was to experience the food pairing. Champagne and parmesan...Viognier and asparagus pesto wrapped in prosciutto...Tavel rosé with tandoori bites... and much more. Many of us were surprised to find that St-Joseph goes very well with dark chocolate! Who knew Marie-France is such a wonderful chef? (Perhaps she might consider offering a ‘deli’ service to go with our wine purchases next time?)

There were lots of questions and people took home ideas, recipes and a better knowledge of wine. Marie-France presented each of the 11 wines with knowledge and enthusiasm. She definitely likes what she does! We can now tell how old a red wine is just by looking at it, when to keep and when to drink now, how you make champagne rosé and most importantly, to be able enhance our “table” experience by serving just the right wine with our culinary creations.

In the meantime, Eduardo, her husband, was chained to the stove assembling and delivering the appetizers to enhance each wine…(what dedication after a 5am start, a business trip to Zurich and a full day working!). Marie-France and Eduardo will deliver your order and do the catering, giving you a stress-free and interesting way to entertain. We are so very lucky to have such a talented office manager!

The next wine tasting will be in the spring and will feature all new wines and appetizers. The theme will be “Spring and Summer” and we’re sure to have another fabulous time - don't miss it!

Submitted by Lois Darley

Slow Down with Carl!

We're very excited that Canadian journalist Carl Honoré will be joining us for our March hospitality, Tuesday morning, March 9th (see the calendar details on our website). We'll be meeting in the Gold Room of Canada House to hear Carl tell us about his latest exploits in trying to get us all to, well...just...slow...down.

Carl lives in South London but is known around the world for adding wit and wisdom to the slow movement discussion. We don't know if he'll be speaking to us about slow sex as he has done for other audiences, slow food or slow parenting, which he's written about in his book 'Under Pressure', but it promises to be a great morning!

Please get in touch with the CWC office if you would like to be there!

Canadian Women's Club Precision Skating Team Adventure On Ice in London

(or...Let's Do Lunch, with Skates On...to mark the Vancouver 2010 Olympics)

It was with a certain amount of nervous trepidation that six ladies from the Canadian Women's Club Precision Skating Team took to the ice on Friday Feb 26th.

The majority of us had not been on skates for quite a few years and only two of us actually owned skates!

But, no matter, we were up for it. After a very shaky start in the skate changing room (Sharon was about to give up until she received some encouragement from the skate hire man, who showed her and yours truly how to put the damn plastic skates on!) we were out and on the ice! And wow did we fly!

Around and round we went and in the same direction. Everyone was reluctant to perform anything but the most basic skating manouvers: right foot push left foot push swish...swish...swish. But once we recalled the rhythm of skating we quite enjoyed the whole experience for almost one and a half hours! And no major embarrassment of falling, whatsoever.

However, I must admit that, as Sharon said "it was good to be back on land again after leaving the rink!" We rewarded ourselves with a lovely lunch at Cafe Anglais in the Whiteleys Mall on the Queensway.

Everyone agrees we should make this a regular activity of the CWC. Anyone wishing to establish the CWC Precision Skating Team, please contact the Canadian Olympic Skating team for more details (or Patty Bell if you can't find their email)!

Humbly submitted by Patty 'Hot Skates' Bell (pictured above, but just out of shot of Joannie Rochette, Canadian winner of the Bronze Medal for Figure Skating)