On this brand new page of our website we will be uploading email correspondence between Liz, a member of 'Vrouwen van Nu' (Women of Today) a women's organisation similar to the WI in Twisk-Holland, with June and Ann members of Baslow WI, Derbyshire. Scroll down and see how this friendship began with a lovely email from Liz received out of the blue on 30 January 2024...
TO: Liz
FROM: Ann
DATE: 11 April 2024
FROM: Ann
DATE: 11 April 2024
Hi Liz,
The speaker this month was from the Cyber Crime Unit and gave a very informative talk about what we should be looking for and avoiding. One of our members who is involved with our Neighbourhood Watch in Baslow also gave a short presentation, dressed as a cat burglar. Brilliant! You can see our Roving Reporter, Jane's report for the press on her page of our website: https://baslow-wi.weebly.com/roving-reporter.html We were very pleased to have our President, Judith, back after her spell in hospital. She has a long way to go in her recovery but our members were glad to have her back. Good luck with the launch of your new website. We will look forward to seeing it when it goes live soon. Jane has written a short bit of local news for you and our friends in New Zealand this month... Stoney Middleton is a village next door but one to Baslow. It’s been in the news recently because of the white Rock Cress growing on the limestone crags. Pictured is Lovers Leap Garage named after a young girl, Hannah Baddeley, jilted by her lover, jumped from the cliff in 1762. She was saved by her hooped petticoat that acted as a parachute and protected her fall. You’ll be hearing more about this quarrying village soon, as we plan to visit one of the last boot making factories there. With best wishes to all in Vrouwen van Nu, Twisk, from the Baslow Darlings, Ann 🌷 |
TO: June
FROM: Liz
DATE: 29 March 2023
FROM: Liz
DATE: 29 March 2023
Morning Liz,
Your beautiful tulips are far in advance of mine, most of which a friend brought me from Amsterdam, so they are the genuine article!
Photo to follow, probably in a couple of weeks!
I shall be at the next meeting of our WI and will send you a report...........
June 🇬🇧
Your beautiful tulips are far in advance of mine, most of which a friend brought me from Amsterdam, so they are the genuine article!
Photo to follow, probably in a couple of weeks!
I shall be at the next meeting of our WI and will send you a report...........
June 🇬🇧
TO: June
FROM: Liz
DATE: 28 March 2023
FROM: Liz
DATE: 28 March 2023
Hallo June,
Thank you for the kind greetings and the beautiful water colour, you are a talented artist. I was pleased to hear from you. Thank you to all at Baslow WI for your kind Easter wishes. On behalf of Twisk Vrouwen van Nu I would like to return the same best wishes for a Happy Easter weekend - let's hope the drizzle stops and the sun comes out. I am no artist regrettably, but here is a photo of the daffodils and tulips just outside our french doors...in the rain!!! Liz 🇳🇱 |
TO: Liz in Twisk
FROM: June in Baslow
DATE: 27 March 2024
FROM: June in Baslow
DATE: 27 March 2024
TO: Liz in Twisk
FROM: Ann in Baslow
DATE: 22 March 2024
FROM: Ann in Baslow
DATE: 22 March 2024
Hi again Liz,
What a lovely COVID story you have linked to your lovely Carah. It was a tough time and it amazing to think that it is all in the past now. We were talking about it when we had a Lunch Club meeting on Wednesday this week. It was a Fish & Chip lunch, how English is that?! https://baslow-wi.weebly.com/news--photos.html We will look forward to visiting your new website when it is launched on 15 April. Well done, do please send us a link when it's available. Have a good weekend Liz, bye for now, Ann 🇬🇧 |
TO: Ann, Jane & June in Baslow
FROM: Liz in Twisk
DATE: 21 March 2025
FROM: Liz in Twisk
DATE: 21 March 2025
Ahh, Tom is gorgeous. And Caragh is honoured to feature beside him on your page. Caragh is from a breeder very close to where we are living now, though when she came we had not even considered living up here. All very coincidental. And what is even more so - as we collected Caragh, the breeder was preparing a trip to the UK for some blood line purification in....Uttoxeter. Unfortunately the trip had to be cancelled at the last minute as lockdown kicked in a week later. Our Caragh is not a "dog bought because of Covid", having been planned since January 2020, but she came to us as Covid struck...and indeed it struck Rob and myself almost immediately. That was a challenging time - a young puppy and both of us with the dreaded lurgy!! Once we recovered it was even more wonderful to have her as she was our perfect excuse to be allowed out of the house for some fresh air.
This morning I have been working together with co-member Angeline on our newly vamped website. The national and regional versions are already live and the local ones go live as of 15 April. Dutch dictionaries at the ready, Baslow!
Greetings from us all, Liz 🇳🇱
This morning I have been working together with co-member Angeline on our newly vamped website. The national and regional versions are already live and the local ones go live as of 15 April. Dutch dictionaries at the ready, Baslow!
Greetings from us all, Liz 🇳🇱
19 & 20 March 2024 🇳🇱 🇬🇧
Liz and Ann continued corresponding and found they are both dog lovers, they swapped photos. Here they are...
TO: Ann in Baslow
FROM: Liz in Twisk
DATE: 15 March
FROM: Liz in Twisk
DATE: 15 March
Dear Ann,
Thank you for the lovely news with photo. You got a good crowd..including the odd man here and there! Your regular fund-raising methods (for the WI as well as others) are are source of inspiration.
Have a good weekend.
Greetings from Twisk to Baslow, Liz 🇳🇱
Thank you for the lovely news with photo. You got a good crowd..including the odd man here and there! Your regular fund-raising methods (for the WI as well as others) are are source of inspiration.
Have a good weekend.
Greetings from Twisk to Baslow, Liz 🇳🇱
TO: Liz in Twisk
FROM: Ann in Baslow
DATE: 15 March 2024
FROM: Ann in Baslow
DATE: 15 March 2024
Hi Liz,
June wasn't at our meeting on Wednesday so this is just a note to let you know what happened. Our speaker was excellent, Angelique Foster is the Derbyshire Police & Crime Commissioner, she was elected in 2020 and has done an awful lot of work trying to make Derbyshire a safer place for us in the years since then. We had our usual collection of donations for the Elm Foundation, formerly Chesterfield Women's Refuge. Our members are very generous each month donating toiletries, slippers etc and this month we added things for Easter, crafts and of course Easter Eggs! Other charities we are supporting this year are Bakewell & Eyam Community Transport and The Air Ambulance. We have an excellent book swap. Members donate their books and borrow them for 50p, no time limit! The other way we raise money is by holding a small raffle, 50p per ticket. The money from both goes towards the running of our WI. Take a peep at the News/Photos page of our website to see the photos taken at the meeting. https://baslow-wi.weebly.com/news--photos.html With very warm wishes to you Liz and friends in Vrouwen van Nu, Twisk, from all at Baslow WI, Ann 🇬🇧 |
TO: Liz in Twisk
FROM: June in Baslow
DATE: 8 March 2024
FROM: June in Baslow
DATE: 8 March 2024
list_of_books_read.docx | |
File Size: | 14 kb |
File Type: | docx |
Hello Liz,
Here is the list of books our little group have read, quite a varied selection. Not all of them were enjoyed by everyone but our discussions are always very lively and all opinions respected. We also manage a little gossip over the coffee and biscuits! If there is a title you are interested in please feel free to ask my opinion. Regards, June 🇬🇧 |
TO: Liz in Twisk
FROM: Ann in Baslow
DATE: 7 March 2024
FROM: Ann in Baslow
DATE: 7 March 2024
Hi Liz,
Glad you liked the Derbyshire Federation Facebook page, I have been an admin on it for many years now and put the Starry Night banner on a couple of years ago! The venue for our WI Annual Council Meeting was The Winding Wheel Chesterfield, it is used as a theatre mainly now but back in the day it was a cinema and dance hall. The street level and the balcony combined can seat 856 people. |
Another point of interest some of your members might not know is that Chesterfield is a market town in Derbyshire famous for its Crooked Spire on the church of St Mary & All Saints.
We'd love to see some of you visiting and liking our Baslow WI Facebook page, we now have 8,500 followers: https://www.facebook.com/BaslowWI/?ref=ts&fref=ts
With very kind regards to you all in Twisk, Ann 🇬🇧
We'd love to see some of you visiting and liking our Baslow WI Facebook page, we now have 8,500 followers: https://www.facebook.com/BaslowWI/?ref=ts&fref=ts
With very kind regards to you all in Twisk, Ann 🇬🇧
TO: Ann in Baslow
FROM: Liz in Twisk
DATE: 7 March 2024
FROM: Liz in Twisk
DATE: 7 March 2024
Dear Ann,
Many thanks for sharing this with us. The event looks extremely well attended. What was the venue?
I was also interested when scrolling down to see an extremely youthful member of the Loscoe group! Start them young🤣.
And of course the banner at the top of the page speaks volumes to us here in Holland - good old Vincent van Gogh's Starry Night!
Kind regards from all of us in Twisk, Liz 🇳🇱
Many thanks for sharing this with us. The event looks extremely well attended. What was the venue?
I was also interested when scrolling down to see an extremely youthful member of the Loscoe group! Start them young🤣.
And of course the banner at the top of the page speaks volumes to us here in Holland - good old Vincent van Gogh's Starry Night!
Kind regards from all of us in Twisk, Liz 🇳🇱
TO: Liz in Twisk
FROM: Ann in Baslow
DATE: 7 MARCH 2024
FROM: Ann in Baslow
DATE: 7 MARCH 2024
...
We had a wonderful day at our Annual Council Meeting on Tuesday this week. We had three very inspirational speakers in the morning, I was sorry I had to leave at the lunch break but everyone said the afternoon speaker was great also. I am part of the Media Hub Team in Derbyshire WIs and had an excellent seat in the second row where I could get some photos for the Derbyshire Federation Facebook Page. This is a link to it if you are interested: https://www.facebook.com/DerbyWIs
I will look forward to reading more of your news, bye for now, Ann 🇬🇧
We had a wonderful day at our Annual Council Meeting on Tuesday this week. We had three very inspirational speakers in the morning, I was sorry I had to leave at the lunch break but everyone said the afternoon speaker was great also. I am part of the Media Hub Team in Derbyshire WIs and had an excellent seat in the second row where I could get some photos for the Derbyshire Federation Facebook Page. This is a link to it if you are interested: https://www.facebook.com/DerbyWIs
I will look forward to reading more of your news, bye for now, Ann 🇬🇧
Early in March it was agreed that a new web page would be opened to share correspondence between Baslow and Twisk. The page will grow as time goes on.
TO: Liz in Twisk
FROM: June in Baslow
DATE: 21 February 2024
FROM: June in Baslow
DATE: 21 February 2024
Dear Liz,
How nice to hear from you, I was intrigued by your description of your speaker and the fact that you stayed chatting until the following morning!
Firstly, a little of my background and how I came to work in Holland. The company I worked for in Chesterfield transferred to Amersfoort, just outside Amsterdam for financial reasons. My job was to oversee the transfer of everything from the UK and set up the office there. Obviously it took some time, so I flew to Amsterdam every Sunday and returned home on Thursday. The people there were extremely friendly and all spoke English, which made my life very enjoyable. Unfortunately, the work didn’t enable me to see a great deal of the county.
I’ve been a member of Baslow WI for about 9 years now. It really is a large group with lots of activities. I’m afraid I’m not a very active member, being disabled I can’t join in the walking or cycling groups, but I really enjoy the book group. We have just read Auto Da Fay by Fay Weldon, very amusing!
At our meeting last week we had a very interesting speaker talking about borders. Not the garden variety, borders of countries. One illustration was of a border going straight through the front door of a house, therefore the house was in two countries!
I’ve looked up your village of Twisk on the internet, it is so beautiful. I really love Holland.
I look forward to receiving your news Liz, and receiving the link to your website. It is still raining in the UK by the way, although we seem to be having an unusually early spring temperature wise.
Regards, June 🇬🇧
How nice to hear from you, I was intrigued by your description of your speaker and the fact that you stayed chatting until the following morning!
Firstly, a little of my background and how I came to work in Holland. The company I worked for in Chesterfield transferred to Amersfoort, just outside Amsterdam for financial reasons. My job was to oversee the transfer of everything from the UK and set up the office there. Obviously it took some time, so I flew to Amsterdam every Sunday and returned home on Thursday. The people there were extremely friendly and all spoke English, which made my life very enjoyable. Unfortunately, the work didn’t enable me to see a great deal of the county.
I’ve been a member of Baslow WI for about 9 years now. It really is a large group with lots of activities. I’m afraid I’m not a very active member, being disabled I can’t join in the walking or cycling groups, but I really enjoy the book group. We have just read Auto Da Fay by Fay Weldon, very amusing!
At our meeting last week we had a very interesting speaker talking about borders. Not the garden variety, borders of countries. One illustration was of a border going straight through the front door of a house, therefore the house was in two countries!
I’ve looked up your village of Twisk on the internet, it is so beautiful. I really love Holland.
I look forward to receiving your news Liz, and receiving the link to your website. It is still raining in the UK by the way, although we seem to be having an unusually early spring temperature wise.
Regards, June 🇬🇧
TO: Ann & June in Baslow
FROM: Liz in Twisk
DATE: 16 February 2024
FROM: Liz in Twisk
DATE: 16 February 2024
Dear Ann and June,
Many thanks for getting back to me with the great news that you are keen on corresponding with us. I shall be interested to hear of your Dutch experience, June - and to compare notes!
I shall indeed continue to follow your activities and perhaps with your assistance, June, you can follow ours via Facebook or our website (being updated as we speak, so I shall send you the link in due course). I too am happy to provide translations as and when required. At our monthly gathering yesterday evening a local Twisk resident and violin builder brought along a small but historically representative selection of his complete collection of 800(!) violins and associated instruments from all over the world. He gave us a quick romp through the historical developments, illustrating these with originals and replicas as he went along. He then showed us the various and complex stages of constructing a violin and, though time-consuming (some 250 hours' work) he shared our sentiments that the price a Stradivarius can command these days is totally out of proportion!
Our speaker for the evening closed his presentation just after 22.30 hrs and the conversation continued to flow...the last of us leaving the premises after 00.30 hrs. Another fun and highly-connected Vrouwen van Nu evening.
We now look forward to March's offering - all about herbal medicine. The next VvanNu item on my agenda is our evening book club on Monday. For a trip down memory lane we chose the Hobbit, though many of us are, even prior to the evening's discussion, rather of the opinion that we are "not fantasy types"! The next ideas on the list are a little more down to earth.
Looking forward to hearing your news, I send you greetings from us all in Twisk and the hope that today's rain will dry up in time for the weekend.
Kind regards from Holland! Liz 🇳🇱
Many thanks for getting back to me with the great news that you are keen on corresponding with us. I shall be interested to hear of your Dutch experience, June - and to compare notes!
I shall indeed continue to follow your activities and perhaps with your assistance, June, you can follow ours via Facebook or our website (being updated as we speak, so I shall send you the link in due course). I too am happy to provide translations as and when required. At our monthly gathering yesterday evening a local Twisk resident and violin builder brought along a small but historically representative selection of his complete collection of 800(!) violins and associated instruments from all over the world. He gave us a quick romp through the historical developments, illustrating these with originals and replicas as he went along. He then showed us the various and complex stages of constructing a violin and, though time-consuming (some 250 hours' work) he shared our sentiments that the price a Stradivarius can command these days is totally out of proportion!
Our speaker for the evening closed his presentation just after 22.30 hrs and the conversation continued to flow...the last of us leaving the premises after 00.30 hrs. Another fun and highly-connected Vrouwen van Nu evening.
We now look forward to March's offering - all about herbal medicine. The next VvanNu item on my agenda is our evening book club on Monday. For a trip down memory lane we chose the Hobbit, though many of us are, even prior to the evening's discussion, rather of the opinion that we are "not fantasy types"! The next ideas on the list are a little more down to earth.
Looking forward to hearing your news, I send you greetings from us all in Twisk and the hope that today's rain will dry up in time for the weekend.
Kind regards from Holland! Liz 🇳🇱
TO: Liz in Twisk
FROM: Ann in Baslow
DATE: 15 February 2024
FROM: Ann in Baslow
DATE: 15 February 2024
Hi again Liz,
Our Team at Baslow WI were very pleased to hear from you and are looking forward to corresponding with you. We put the idea to our members at our WI meeting yesterday afternoon and June said she would like to correspond with you, probably via email.
I have copied June in on this email, I expect she will be in touch with you soon. She has lived in Holland and so you will have things in common.
I hope that you and June can strike up a friendship as we have with our New Zealand Link WI members and that I can be copied in at times so that I can share the news with our members either by email or our website.
Please do continue to view our online sites, Weebly and Facebook.
I will look forward to hearing from you in the future.
With warm wishes, Ann 🇬🇧
Our Team at Baslow WI were very pleased to hear from you and are looking forward to corresponding with you. We put the idea to our members at our WI meeting yesterday afternoon and June said she would like to correspond with you, probably via email.
I have copied June in on this email, I expect she will be in touch with you soon. She has lived in Holland and so you will have things in common.
I hope that you and June can strike up a friendship as we have with our New Zealand Link WI members and that I can be copied in at times so that I can share the news with our members either by email or our website.
Please do continue to view our online sites, Weebly and Facebook.
I will look forward to hearing from you in the future.
With warm wishes, Ann 🇬🇧
TO: Liz in Twisk
FROM: Ann in Baslow
DATE: 31 January 2024
FROM: Ann in Baslow
DATE: 31 January 2024
Hello Liz,
Thank you for your lovely email. It's great to hear from and and learn about Vrouwen van Nu. At Baslow WI we are having a Team Meeting (committee) next Wednesday, I will share your email with the team and answer it in full following that meeting. In the meantime, thanks again and all the best to you and your members in Twisk. With very kind regards, Ann 🇬🇧 |
FROM: Liz, Vrouwen van Nu, Twisk
TO: Baslow WI members
DATE: 30 January 2024
TO: Baslow WI members
DATE: 30 January 2024
Hello to all the ladies at Baslow WI,
Liz Parker here. What am I doing contacting you out of the blue? I am originally from Derbyshire. South Derbyshire to be precise, and to be even more precise from Etwall, a village some 6 miles outside Derby. I have been living in the Netherlands for over 30 years and after retiring in 2021, moved to a village in the north of the Netherlands and joined the "Vrouwen van Nu" in the next door village of Twisk. "Vrouwen van Nu" is the equivalent of the WI. This particular group was formed in 1930 and is extremely (pro-)active. I was amazed to discover all they do. Alongside the monthly Thursday evening gatherings for which an annual lecture/presentation programme is arranged, there are numerous interest groups from reading and discussion groups (two of each), through photography, painting, cookery and needlework to lunch, cinema, museum, cycling, travel and walking groups. In fact - very much like Baslow WI, if I look at your website. We have a membership of just over 90 and an age-range from 26 to...indeed 90. The 90-year old runs the museum group! For many years Vrouwen van Nu Twisk had close ties and happy exchanges with WI groups in the UK, latterly with ladies in Sevenoaks. Sadly this one has run its course as the Sevenoaks ladies are dwindling in numbers and increasing in age. I joined the committee at the beginning of last year and at our September gathering I did a presentation on all the delights of Derbyshire, ending the session with a taster of Bakewell tart, Derbyshire oatcakes and sage Derby cheese. Those present were very taken with Derbyshire - who would not be spellbound by the views in the Peak? Gradually talk turned to a possible new exchange and it would seem there is sufficient appetite for it. |
Why did I hit upon Baslow? Whilst staying in a lovely cottage in Ednaston near Ashbourne I got chatting to the lady owner to find out if she happened to know of enthusiastic, active WI groups in Derbyshire and she mentioned Baslow specifically. A visit to your website aroused my further interest as did a recent drive through your lovely village with its envious proximity to Chatsworth.
Twisk is an equally lovely village. Considerably smaller than Baslow and with far fewer amenities, it is however renowned for being picturesque and representative of the local north Dutch style of housing and of the very friendly folk in these parts. For the "missing" amenities it is a short 10-minute drive to the small town of Medemblik on the shores of the IJsselmeer (formerly known as the Zuiderzee). Here are some general details on Twisk. The photos most certainly do not do it justice so I hope you might be able to access these to get an idea of what it's like in Twisk and the surrounding villages. Here too some information on the little town of Medemblik.
Well, that was just a short first introduction. I know you already have (e-)mail contacts with New Zealand. Perhaps your members would also be interested in contacts a little closer to home, and the prospect of a live visit - how about when the bulb fields are in bloom?
I do hope to hear from you and if there is interest on your side, perhaps we can have an exchange committee-to-committee (via Zoom?) to explore the possibilities further?
With kind regards from Twisk to Baslow. Liz 🇳🇱
Twisk is an equally lovely village. Considerably smaller than Baslow and with far fewer amenities, it is however renowned for being picturesque and representative of the local north Dutch style of housing and of the very friendly folk in these parts. For the "missing" amenities it is a short 10-minute drive to the small town of Medemblik on the shores of the IJsselmeer (formerly known as the Zuiderzee). Here are some general details on Twisk. The photos most certainly do not do it justice so I hope you might be able to access these to get an idea of what it's like in Twisk and the surrounding villages. Here too some information on the little town of Medemblik.
Well, that was just a short first introduction. I know you already have (e-)mail contacts with New Zealand. Perhaps your members would also be interested in contacts a little closer to home, and the prospect of a live visit - how about when the bulb fields are in bloom?
I do hope to hear from you and if there is interest on your side, perhaps we can have an exchange committee-to-committee (via Zoom?) to explore the possibilities further?
With kind regards from Twisk to Baslow. Liz 🇳🇱