Bracknell Twinning Association

27/06/2016
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Schloss Morsbroich – Morsbroich Palace, Leverkusen

Bracknell Twinning Association works with the Freundeskreis in Leverkusen to arrange regular visits to their partner towns and in particular to facilitate exchanges between local interest groups, schools and sports clubs and for work experience.

Bracknell originally twinned in 1973 with Opladen in Germany, a town of a similar size to itself.  During a local government re-organisation the Opladen local authority was absorbed by Leverkusen, a town of about 160,000 people and the home of the famous Bayer Chemical Works. Leverkusen continued the partnership and is also twinned with several other towns across the world. Leverkusen is just north of Cologne and has a good train service to this city. You can read more about Leverkusen in the “Welcome to Leverkusen” guide. (Link below)

Bracknell Twinning Association works with the Freundeskreis in Leverkusen to arrange regular visits to their partner towns and in particular to facilitate exchanges between local interest groups, schools and sports clubs and for work experience. In recent years the bond of friendship between citizens of the twin towns has been re-kindled with an increasing number of exchanges and joint activities.

Regular updates about exchanges and joint activities are posted on the Council’s Facebook page at http://www.facebook.com/Bracknelltowncouncil

The Bracknell Twinning Association is run by a committee elected each year at its Annual General Meeting. All its meetings are held in the Bracknell Town Council Chamber, usually on Monday evenings at about monthly intervals. Any local resident interested in twinning is welcome to make contact and attend the meetings. Various sports and cultural exchanges take place on a regular basis and the committee is always pleased to facilitate other exchanges for clubs or individuals.

The Association would be pleased to hear from anyone who may be able to offer accommodation to visitors from Leverkusen.
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Zoom Meeting: First Steps towards old Freedoms

14/06/2021

Second Videoconference Meeting: First Steps towards old Freedoms

writes Norbert Maibücher, Leverkusen

In mid May, 2021, Mary Temperton, Chair of the Bracknell Twinning Association and host of the ZOOM-meetings with Freundeskreis (Circle of Friends) Leverkusen-Bracknell, was happy to count 17 faces on the little monitors of the Zoom screen for the second round of our digital get-togethers.

Of course the first item on the agenda was an invitation to everybody to talk about how they had experienced the previous weeks since the first virtual meeting. The participants came up with stories of how they had enjoyed going shopping in the mall, how they had had a day out in London with a visit to the Tate Gallery, or how their voluntary work at the kindergarten or the food bank had been possible again and how grateful the young and the old had been for their being there.

What was quite interesting for the German listeners was how the social distancing rules were enforced in England. Whereas here the municipal public order office or the police, i.e. legal authorities, understaffed for such duties, are in charge in public spaces, and security personnel watches the entrance and exit of the shops that are open, there are plenty of marshals around in the shopping areas and precincts in Britain who remind people of the rules and regulations and see to it that people abide by them. They cannot fine people, but they can call police for help. Sounds sensible.

And then we Germans learnt – again with jealousy – that all the vaccinations that have taken place in Britain have been digitally recorded and citizens can prove their Covid status in a simple way on their NHS app. In Germany the development of the digitalisation of health data is way behind, for one thing because of – maybe exaggerated – worries about data protection and competing business interests, but also due to failures in the health administration in our federal system. (more…)

Bracknell Leverkusen Friends Meet Online

01/04/2021

News from Bracknell March 26, 2021

On Wednesday we had our first Zoom meeting between friends in Bracknell and our twin city of Leverkusen. It was lovely to see everyone again and to catch up on our news.
This has been a hard year for us all.
We had to cancel our much-anticipated trip to Germany to meet up with everyone again, last June. We now hope this will take place in June 2022

We, in the UK, are just coming out of another Covid-19 lockdown. We must work at home if possible, only travel locally, not mix with any other households indoors or in gardens. The children are still in school but secondary students must give themselves a lateral flow test twice a week to see if they are Covid positive. These test kits are provided by the schools.
Parents and other family members are expected to test twice a week too with tests from local testing centres.
We must wear masks on public transport and in the few essential shops that are open. We do not have to wear them just walking about, but many do.
Our lovely new Bracknell shopping centre- open just two years ago- is deserted. Some of the large stores will never reopen as their companies have folded.
Return to ‘normal’ is to be a slow process, with shops opening in the middle of April. Pubs will only be able to serve in gardens and then only two families of up to six people in one group.
Most people over 50 have now been vaccinated with their first vaccination.
It was really good to meet by zoom and we will do so again in May.

Mary Temperton
Chair of Bracknell Twinning Association.

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Tel: 01344 426191 Email: mary.temperton@bracknelltowncouncil.gov.uk