In the meantime, the American Club continues to offer its members interesting events; we had no less than 10 during the first three months of 2022.

These events attract new members, we are growing more rapidly than ever; although our name is the word "American", we are open to all nationalities -only about 30 percent of our members are American, 40 percent are Portuguese and 30 percent "other" nationals - we are today a truly international club.

Events

The American Club has a large variety of events, some are social get-togethers, some are principally business networking events, many have speakers addressing a wide range of subjects of interest: political, economic, cultural, societal, etc. We also organise cultural visit, particular attractive to expatriates having recently arrived in Portugal but often also exposing our Portuguese members to "hidden gems" in Portugal's rich cultural venues that they did not know about.

For example, we recently organised a walking tour of the Jewish Heritage of Lisbon, a visit to the atelier of world-renown Portuguese artist Joana Vasconcelos, adding a more classical visit to the Palacio Nacional de Mafra. These cultural visits, usually involving 20-40 people, always include a meal together, a wonderful occasion to build closer friendships.

Speakers

During the first three months of 2022, we had four dinners with speakers, introducing a typical mix of subjects:

- Patrick Monteiro de Barros, the famous Portuguese businessman and Olympic sailor sharing in the intimacy of a dinner, stories of his life, mirroring the history of Portugal over the past recent decades,

- Luis Castro Henriques, the CEO of AICEP, the Portuguese agency promoting foreign investment into Portugal and outreach of Portuguese companies abroad, who talked about his experience of revitalizing this important institution, sharing his vision of the future for Portugal including its business relations with the United States,

- Dr Felipe Pathé Duarte, a foreign policy expert, speaking of Ukraine and its history with Russia, just before the Russian invasion, and
- Richard Lucas, a well-known creator of TED-talks, explaining the success of this expert platform.

In addition, the American Club of Lisbon decided at the end of 2021 to launch a series of theme events, choosing Real Estate as the first theme. Virtually everyone at these events is involved in real estate, they are wonderful forums for high-level networking. Our American Club Real Estate Event in March had as keynote speaker José Cardoso Botelho, CEO of Vanguard, the largest developer in Portugal.

Our events aim to be interesting, productive, and fun. They are successful in part because of the quality of the speakers, but just as importantly, people enjoy attending American Club events because they can discover and develop relationships and friendships with other members, interesting internationalists seeking to enjoy stimulating moments with people who share some of the same interests.

For more information, please call Tel: +351 21 352 93 08 or visit https://americancluboflisbon.com