Verwood and Three-Legged Cross Twinning Association

VERWOOD AND THREE-LEGGED CROSS TWINNING ASSOCIATION

REPORT

2007/8 has been a very busy year. Immediately following last year’s AGM we had the formal civic presentation ceremony for the European Flag of Honour, followed by the Saturday’s free day of entertainment for everyone in the town which we named Flagfest. We were amazingly lucky with the weather and a large number of people enjoyed the attractions at various locations around the town. Although we didn’t charge for attendance, we did collect from traders for advertising in the program and the proceeds of this have paid for the Twinning fingerpost on Ferrett Green - more about this later. In addition, contributions for Manitou’s high lift ride raised many hundreds of pounds for the Mayor’s charity, St Gabriel’s.

Once the dust had settled on Flagfest, it was back to normal with a racenight held in November at the Legion, when 96 people came to try to win their fortunes. At the end of November we had our weekend trip to Valkenburg Christmas market. The weekend was enjoyed by 42 people and not even a stormy return crossing could dampen their enthusiasm.

December of course was our Christmas party night. We had a large attendance and were entertained by Phil Collins (not THE Phil Collins!) on the piano, Jubilate with their wonderful a capella singing and one of my infamous quizzes.

In January we received a short-notice invitation to visit Champtoceaux in May which we were pleased to accept as we had not heard anything official from our German friends.

Throughout the winter we held our monthly members’ meetings, with talks about the German regions, journeys to India by bus, French oddities, a paddle along the Piddle and Discovering Dorset..

In March, we were asked if there was a suitable exchange family in Verwood for a 15-year- old German schoolgirl but unfortunately I was unable to find anyone in the Twinning and neither of the secondary schools bothered to respond.

The visit to Champtoceaux in May was exhausting as usual but thoroughly enjoyable. We were shown the usual first class hospitality which included a trip up the Oudon Tower, along the Loire and 135m down a slate mine. Our presentation, jointly with the Town Council, of a mosaic was very well received and will probably be repeated for next year’s visit to Liederbach.

As soon as we got home it was dog show time and although food sales were slightly down on last year this was still a fascinating and popular event with over 100 entries. We got further publicity when our fingerpost was officially unveiled in May. This shows the directions and distances (in miles!) to our twin towns and commemorates our winning of the flag of honour. There was something of a race against time to get this function in before Alec Nicholls’ term as Mayor expired, but in the event Dorset Works Office got the post planted, complete with “dummy” finial, in time for this to be an event at which outgoing and incoming mayors were both able to participate.

Some of you may have seen in the August newsletter that the question of the finial came to attention of the Milestone Society who emailed me asking how we came to possess a finial which belonged some miles north-west of Dorchester! I was able to put their mind at rest and we now have our own, specially-cast finial in position.

A number of the Committee visited Liederbach in June to represent us at their formal twinning with a Polish town. While they were there, they received an invitation for us to visit in June next year, from 19th to 22nd and we are currently making arrangements for this visit.

We also made a national magazine. August’s FRANCE magazine was going to feature our twinning achievements but in the end they just reprinted my original email. But this still attracted attention from Wigan, who are twinned with Angers, who have been writing to me to find out about the various stages of the Europe Prize. If anyone hasn’t seen the magazine there should still be some copies that can be borrowed.

Unfortunately, the Summer Outing this year was cancelled as the boat would have been unable to tie up at Swanage.

We again entered a team in the Dorset Boules league, this year with a little more success than recently, finishing 6th.

At the Rotary’s Rustic Fayre we again ran Cafe Rene, a wine tombola and a French Treasure Hunt. The weather this year was not quite as kind as the past 2 years but it cheered up as the afternoon went on and we ended up making within £20 of last year’s total.

Terry Bright Chairman Verwood & Three-Legged Cross Twining Association 01202 822959 email: [email protected]