Hi, Alan,
I don't have a immediate code sample, maybe someone else does, but here's something you may want to try.
Create a test Winform with a main menu, a couple of menu pads, and a few menu items. Set the click event in the designer to go to a dummy stub function. (In other words, create a menu system that might look similar to what your user would see at run-time).
Then go look at the Winform Designer generated code. You'll see the code for defining menu items, adding a range of them to each menu pad, defining the text, and setting an event handler when someone clicks an item.
The generated code is hopefully a 'hint' to the types of things you'll want to do.
Kevin