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Aus dem
Mitteilungsblatt von Belleville Sister Cities Inc.
Februar 2010
Grußworte der Präsidenten
President's
Message
WOW - 2009 was another exciting year for Belleville Sister Cities. A big
THANK YOU is extended to Immediate Past President Ron Fritz who led our
Society over the past two years. Much was accomplished including exchanges,
hosting, Oktoberfest and Taste of Germany.
It was truly wonderful that Renate and her staff hosted our Christmas get
together at Roemer Topf Restaurant in Mascoutah. The dinner with a few songs by
Doris accompanied by musician Charley Weyhaupt was especially great in an ole’
world environment. My special appreciation goes out to those from Belleville
Sister Cities who created and contributed to all aspects of the program
including Hilda and Theresa who made arrangements for attendance prizes. Wine
was donated by Steve and Hilda. I think everyone had a great time as I know Gail
and I did.
It was a treat to receive and meet Wolfgang and Renate Stueken from Paderborn at
our November General Membership Meeting. Danke to Wolfgang who presented his
detailed research on Gustave Koerner. Congratulations are in order to DAFK
member Kurt-Heiner Sprenkamp who became vice-president in 2010 and we wish the
very best to Maria Thomalla who served honorably as vice-president for 15 years.
20th Anniversary 1990-2010. Many of you wonderful people helped Belleville
Sister Cities get off the ground towards the end of 1980s, as well as in 1990
and we THANK YOU!.
It is my belief that we, your board members, were elected to maintain our past
heritage and lead Belleville Sister Cities toward another 20 years of service.
On behalf of your Board, I can say we are eager to work with and learn from
members of Belleville Sister Cities, DAFK and other Sister City organizations
including those in our neighboring communities. I see my primary role as leading
Belleville Sister Cities based on listening to the membership and understanding
the group’s needs.
The schedule for 2010 provides additional challenges and opportunities for which
some planning has already begun. Support from all our members is required to
continually make our projects successful. Volunteers are welcome and if you are
not sure who to contact for any event feel free to call me at (618) 394-1852 or
send an e-mail to tomgail@sbcglobal.net
Mark your calendars for April 16th for a 20th anniversary bus excursion to and
through parts of Indiana with potential opportunity for a Stammtisch with Jasper
Sister City. Please consider joining us on this trip which will be discussed
more during General Meeting on Feb 18th.
Gail and I will attend the 2010 Illinois State Convention being held in
Carbondale in April and I am hopeful others will join us. More information from
the host committee of the conference will be available soon. Please contact me
if you are interested in receiving the information.
Membership chairman Herm Schoener needs your application along with updates of
your current address, phone number and e-mail address in order to ensure our
membership roster is correct. You can download it from the website and send it
to Herm by e-mail at poph103040@aol.com. .Applications will also be available
during meeting of 18 Feb. Join me by inviting a friend to our events to show off
Belleville Sister Cities.
Many thanks to Doris Roach who has begun meetings and plans for the July student
exchange to Paderborn. More information will be printed in the May publication
of Das Mitteilungsblatt.
In closing, we need to remind ourselves of our primary purpose, which is to
promote and expand understanding and friendship with Paderborn, so that citizens
of each city better understand each other.
Tom Heiting
News
from Paderborn
Dear Friends in Belleville and Around:
Again as in January 2009, the first half of January this year was
rather cold in Germany with much snow – similar to the weather in
Belleville as we were informed in reports from our sister city.
Looking back on 2009, we want to thank Ron Fritz and also the
members on the board of BSC for what they did to work for a
successful relationship between our two sister-city organizations.
Ron now is past president, many warm thanks to him for his two years
of presidency!
We welcome Tom Heiting as new President of BSC and Jerry Reilmann as
president-elect. Best wishes to both of them. We are sure that we’ll
cooperate with Tom as smoothly as we did with Ron and his
predecessors. We are looking forward to strengthening the bonds of
friendship between our two cities and regions. Again, our
Thanksgiving Dinner was a great success. Bernd could welcome about
130 members. The five students who had returned from Belleville on
Nov. 8 th gave a short report of their wonderful time in Belleville
and thanked everybody involved in this great project on both sides
of the Atlantic. Maria Thomalla, who was made honorary member of
DAFK, deliv ered a wonderful speech appreciating what she had
experienced in her 15 years of being vice-president.
Wolfgang and Renate Stueken were happy to be in Belleville on
Thanksgiving. Wolfgang also attended the celebration of Gustave
Koerner’s 200th birthday. He had a chance to present some of his
findings about Koerner who was a native of Frankfurt, Germany.
We are proud of Wolfgang who led a toast to Koerner’s 200th
birthday. See the report with pictures about the celebration in the
Newsletter of St Clair County Historical Society which is published
on our homepage http://www.dafk-paderborn.de/archiv/2010/100115koerner_feier.html.
Barbara Broer has organized a tour for BSC to Dortmund to visit a
concert with the famous violinist Anne-Sophie Mutter and the London
Philharmonic Orchestra, more about Mutter in English http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anne-Sophie_Mutter
We are looking forward to welcoming the students from Belleville who
hosted the Paderborn high school students in 2009, also the group of
youths who will come in July.
We will also start working on a tour for an official visit of DAFK
to Belleville in May 2011.
On behalf of all our members best wishes to all of you.
Bernd Broer
President
Dr. Otmar Allendorf
Secretary |
