Annual Meeting

The Annual General Meeting of the Seattle-Nantes Sister City Association was held at the North City Bistro and Wine Shop in Shoreline on November 8, 2009. The Bistro provided a pleasant, rustic ambience with its brick walls covered with full wine racks and was an excellent venue to host dinner, a presentation and to conduct a short business meeting.

Randy Robinson, of Seattle’s Department of Parks and Recreation, presented a documentary on Les Floralies Internationales, a prestigious flower exhibit that Nantes has hosted every five years since 1956. Floralies has over 200 participants from around France and the world who use plants and flowers to create beautiful landscapes. Randy added commentary to the documentary by narrating what he saw while visiting the exhibit in May and describing gardening techniques in Nantes.   

The Association’s city councilmember representative, Tom Rasmussen, was among the thirty or so attendees who enjoyed a sit-down dinner of either French herbed chicken or vegetarian pasta with a choice of wine.

Following the crème brûlée dessert, Pamela-Ann Hughes, the acting president, lead the formalities of the evening. Pamela reviewed the year’s activities and recognized long-time members. Members reelected to the board for two-year terms were Jean-Loup Baer, Tom Bennett, Marie-Pierre Koban, Jean Leblon, and Susan Hulbert. New board members also elected for two years were Margaret Johnson and Alaina McCallum.

The evening closed by revealing prizes won by members sitting in secretly marked chairs and a special prize to Bunny Schmidley for being the first person to send in her reservation for the event

Additional information:
A short one-minute video of flower displays from the 2009 Floralies in Nantes.

North City Bistro & Wine Shop offers small plates, an extensive wine collection, and live music.