Twin Towns Conference 2009

Schongau hosted the annual conference of our twin towns this year.  The meeting on 8th December had delegations from Abingdon, Colmar, Lucca, Schongau and Sint-Niklaas.  Also invited were representatives from Schongau’s “extra” twin, the town of Gogolin in Poland.  Mostly, each twin town provided three people: the Mayor, the twinning officer and a local twinning society representative.  In Abingdon’s case, Cllr Loraine Oates represented our Mayor who was unfortunately unable to travel.  Completing the team from Abingdon were Marianne Milburn as twinning officer and myself from ADTTS.

Traditionally, the host town provides generous hospitality and Schongau was certainly no exception, providing accommodation and lovely meals.  The programme consisted of a day of formal meetings and a day of cultural visits.  What I found most valuable was the opportunity for all the informal discussions that supported the creation and strengthening of friendships between participants from partner towns.

At the “business” meeting, each twinning society presented its coming year’s programme for discussion.  These contributions reflected the quite varied nature of twinning organisation activities in the separate towns and provided a useful insight into how specific interactions between us might be developed.

For Abingdon, I concentrated on “selling” next year’s English Language Course.  This will be from 12 to 16 July, based at Abingdon College.  I emphasised that we sought students seriously wanting to improve their English who had not been before.  We can take six from each town.  There was interest in knowing more detail (such as ages and cost), but all that will be settled and communicated next Spring.  Otherwise I raised with Lucca the proposal that ADTTS should organise a trip to the Luminara next September.

Colmar did not table a written programme for 2010.  Their main event will be a Language Course with a practical theme of Gastronomie.  It is for 24 students, probably from 12 to 17 April, costing €360.  Other events are the annual book fair (around end-November) and a twinning weekend in December.  They also emphasised that visits by individual travellers from the twin towns are welcome.

Gogolin, a small town of six thousand inhabitants in southern Poland, explained that besides Schongau, they supported links with other partner towns in Eastern Europe.  Next June they are inviting two or three (age twenty plus) interested in art from each twin town (including Schongau’s twins) for a practical week (e.g. painting, ceramics) culminating in an open-air exhibition.  Visits to Gogolin by individuals can be arranged too.

Lucca announced two tourist initiatives: promotion (glossy brochures) of the opportunity to get married in grand villas and the introduction of hospitality cards, available from the tourist office, for twin town visitors that give reductions in shops and museums.  From Abingdon they expect visits by the Pavlova wind quintet in May/June and by the Town Band for the Luminara festival in September.  (Each twin town is invited to send up to five representatives to walk in the procession.)  Lucca have several twinning ideas – a TV programme to show off activities that other twin towns might be interested in; a summer garden party; a digital newspaper inviting contributions; an Italian language course in October (or in 2011) and an international market in September.

Sint-Niklaas has no separate twinning society.  Their programme features several student and youth exchanges.  They have invited a women’s group from Colmar for Europe Day celebrations and in June plan to send about 35 women to Abingdon to meet Kingston Bagpuize with Southmoor Women’s Institute.

Schongau plans large group visits to Colmar and Sint-Niklaas.  The twinning society will host a twinning weekend with four guests from each twin town with the theme museums or castles.  A cook from Lucca is invited for an Italian feast in June.

I have summarised just the most relevant events planned.  Clearly there are lots of ideas and enthusiasm!  The multiplicity of languages posed little difficulty of communication in practice.  (Thank goodness for O-level German!)  We all now have a broad understanding of our partners’ plans, though in part, precise details remain to emerge.

Sint-Niklaas are planning to take their turn to hold next year’s twin towns’ conference, expected to be 10th to 13th December.  (However, Lucca too invited everyone for next year.  The confusion has still to be resolved.)  Abingdon put in a bid to hold the 2012 conference in recognition of the Queen’s Jubilee.

Coffee and cakes (thank you Evelyn and Ingrid!) and the official press photograph of the mayors preceded the afternoon full conference session in the council chamber.  A representative from the EU based in Munich addressed all the mayors and twinning representatives on the theme “Our youth in Europe – values – opportunities – future”.  This was an initiative to look beyond immediate twinning concerns at how to promote mobility of young people in Europe.  (Though I found him difficult as a speaker.)

The social programme of the conference featured a visit to the new Franz-Mark gallery in Kochel and a tour of the Benedict Beuern monastery (of Carmina Burana fame).  Bürgermeister Gerbl was a committed and generous conference host.  The incomparable Frau Ursula Diesch organised everything with aplomb.  Twinning prospers – thank you Schongau!

Brian Read