Loughborough Twinning Association

Epinal                   France
Schwäbisch Hall, Germany
Gembloux            Belgium
Zamość                 Poland.

and a Community Link with Bhavnagar in India.

The importance of Twinning

Wars have plagued Europe for thousands of years, culminating in massive destruction and many millions of deaths in the wars of the 20^th Century.

A determination to prevent the recurrence of the horrors of 1939-1945 war inspired the leaders of the nations of Europe to work for economic and political co-operation, which led ultimately to the formation of the European Union.

Similarly the leaders of the towns and cities of Europe formed links with Twin Towns across the continent to encourage an appreciation of the civic and personal lives of our fellow Europeans.

The EU has supported and sponsored Town Twinning since 1989 and supports around 11,000 twinning partnerships involving over 80,000 people. Find out more about EU support here

Never again will a British Prime Minister be able to say: "How horrible, fantastic it is that we should be digging trenches and trying on gas-masks here because of a quarrel in a far away country between people of whom we know nothing." (Chamberlain in September 1938, after the invasion of Czechoslovakia by German forces.)

Loughborough was one of the first Twin Towns, linking with Epinal in France more that 50 years ago, ten years later a link was formed with Schwäbisch Hall in Germany and later with Gembloux in Belgium and finally with Zamość in Poland following the expansion of the EU after the collapse of the communist government.

Our main activity is a programme of family exchanges. Each twin town sends a group to visit Loughborough and hosts a group from Loughborough in alternate years.

In addition we send and receive young people who seek work experience, there are official visits by the mayors and civic leaders, there are school exchanges, and sporting exchanges. There have been numerous bridge competitions between the twin towns, as well as visits by choirs and country dancing groups.

We have helped young people from our twin towns to see something of the UK. Tomek Kossowski and Marcin Grabski from Zamość spent six months working in and learning from our local authority and now hold senior positions in the administration of Zamość

Laura Moczarska has graduated with a degree in Finance and Accounting at Warwick University in the summer of 2008 and is now working for a Master'd degree at Maastricht Univerity. Agnieska Słiwa has just started on a similar course at Nottingham University, both have been assisted by the Twinning Association

Contact Hazel Meredith 01509 212008 or creedmeredith@tiscali.co.uk for further details and an application form.

Recent Events

Earlier this year we had a visit from our friends from Gembloux in Belgium. The visit was from 30th April to May 4 and included a visit to Tissington to see the well dressing, a visit to the Bell Foundry, an evening of Skittles, a visit to Chatsworth and a visit to the Canal Festival. The highlight, and reported in the press, was a reception by the Mayor in the Town Hall.

In July we had a wonderful visit to Schwäbisch Hall with some fascinating visits and parties, culminating with a very interesting day at the Mercedes Benz Museum in Stuttgart. Some of our members have been twinning with the same families for over 20 years.

In August we entertained 33 visitors from Zamość. Apart from time with hosts we were together for an Welcome dinner, for a visit to Foxton Locks, to the Gladstone pottery museum in Stoke on Trent and Trentham Gardens, a day in Birmingham, which is now a very exciting city, a day in Loughborough where we saw the casting of a plaque to go in the Maket Square along with those already there for our other twin towns. For this part of the visit we were pleased to have the presence of the Mayor of Zamość. It was the 10th anniversary of the twinning. There was an opening of an exhibition of our twinning links in the Library, a band concert in Queens Park, and finally a recception in the Town Hall. We also visited the Galleries of Justice in Notingham, went ten-pin bowling and learned about circle dancing. It was a great week and we were sorry to have to say goodbye to our visitors early on Sunday morning at Birmingham Airport. We are now planning for our next visit to Zamosc in August 2009.

Future Events