Review of the Open Meeting, held on Friday February 23rd 2007

Well, what can one say? What an amazing turnout for the first Open Meeting of the year (do you detect a note of sarcasm there? And so you should). The Association can generally boast member numbers in the region of 56, last night there were 16. Apologies accepted from those of you who notified us, thank you.

Moaning over; now down to the gritty stuff.

Great to see Sue and Nigel. Despite the past four traumatic months, Sue looks incredibly well and Nigel just looks….! It’s perhaps a result of Sue’s positive attitude that’s made her recovery such a short process, or is it because she wants to get out of the house and away from Nige? Good health to you Sue. Well done Nigel for your support, it must have been a difficult time, no golf then?

David read through the Minutes of the last meeting which were uncontested and so signed them off as a true record. There was nothing arising so he went straight into the Financial Statement. It’s looking good: £4086.51 and that’s with everything taken into account. Chris explained about the Association’s insurance renewal being due but no-one really understood the letter from the insurers: are we taking out additional insurance or is it included? I wasn’t really listening to that bit but I’m sure Chris knows what she’s doing. Chris again reiterated the outstanding subs. Please forward them before the end of March or else! Bailiffs are booked.

Item 5 on the Agenda, the French Visit, was briefly discussed, as there was little to say after the decision (with our backing) to postpone the visit here until October/November. We believe that, disappointingly, only 20 French would be able to come in May, which would mean a lot of hard work for everyone and with only a fraction of the French being in attendance; a bit like last night – only kidding dig, dig! The remaining French families would miss out. So the autumn it is.

Big topic for discussion: RECRUITMENT. You may recall it was briefly mentioned in the February Newsletter that we want to try and recruit new members: particularly families with children. A number of good ideas were discussed and they are as follows:

• Wine and Wisdom evening with an open invitation to the village and district.

• French open day

• Table top sale with a variety of stalls including wine, cheese, coffee and croissants etc.

In all three cases the emphasis would be on recruitment, the venue could be decorated in a French style with photos of our visits displayed for people to view. Perhaps we could run the DVD we made for the 20^th presentation. There would be French music we might even want to dress in French style clothing i.e. stripes and berets. Nigel has offered to put together the questions for the wine and wisdom and to compare it. He suggests one of the topics would be French based.

For the open day we’ll try and invite a local or even a national (or international) dignitary, perhaps Jacques Chirac – maybe not! Any ideas? In all cases we’ll endeavour to get the press involved.

We are going to put together a ‘news sheet’ for want of a better phrase. The idea being that everyone, that’s all of us, contribute a short piece on what you’ve got out of the Twinning, what the benefits are and any thing else that makes interesting reading. It really wants to be light hearted so any thing that’s happened to you or yours will be included. Photos will help too. If you have a related topic or something of interest to say, for example Jean and Graham’s experience crossing the Channel in their barge or Nigel’s 150mph trip to Le Mans – I can confirm this as I was sitting in the back, that’s sitting in the back, not what you’re thinking; although I could have been!!   Once we’ve collated all the information we will get it printed properly, Val suggested The Pelican Trust in Lincoln. Then we’ll deliver it to wherever we can. It was suggested by Sue that we could do something on a smaller scale for the children at the local schools to take home. Good idea.

So, all in all, a productive evening. The meeting formally closed at 8.50pm followed by wine and nibbles. Very nice.

Finally, dates for future meetings were given, so get your diaries out: