11 people from Oundle & District Twinning Association and about 21 members of Oundle Bridge Club (on an annual exchange visit) made a most enjoyable trip to the Andrésy Twinning Festival over the weekend of 14^th, 15^th & 16^th Of October.

 

The Oundle Twinning party included the Mayor of Oundle, Cllr June Round, with husband John, Graham Snelling (Assistant Head teacher of Prince William School) with his wife Barbara, accompanying 2 pupils Lucy and Imogen. The party also included Stephen Dalzell (Chairman of Oundle Catholic Parish Council) and Paul, Jean, Chris and Sue from the Twinning Association.

 

The main theme of the weekend was to celebrate the 10^th Anniversary of the twinning of Oundle with Andrésy. The weekend numbers included a group from Haren in Germany led by the Mayor, another group from Vlagtvedde in Holland, the Mayor of Korgom in Niger with 2 assistants (Korgom also celebrated its 10^th twinning anniversary) and Rafal Szczecin from Andrésy twin town Miedzyrzecz in Poland.

 

Local families hosted all of the twinning guests, although the Mayor of Andrésy, Hugues Ribault, decided to kindly put all the visiting Mayors up in a local hotel.

 

The programme included a Mayor’s reception on Friday evening followed by a superb jazz/swing band concert in the Julian Green Centre.

 

On Saturday morning, at 10.00 am, a 90 min official ceremony with about 150 people present took place to commemorate the Twinning successes between all the towns and in particular the 10th anniversaries. Mayor June Round thanked the Andrésy mayor for his kind hospitality and gave him a special present from Oundle, a limited framed copy of a painting of Oundle by local artist Gillian Dolby. After the 4 Mayors’ speeches, which were translated on a large screen display on the stage, the event was rounded off by a speech themed on Europe by local MEP Constance Le Grip.

 

An entertaining open air cocktail party in ideal weather was held by the quayside in the middle of the Saturday market, where further contacts were made with a local rowing representative (some rowing training was happening on the river Seine in front of us) and the cycling* chairman, as well as an interview with June Round by a local newspaper editor.

 

A convivial lunch was provided by Andrésy Twinning Association nearby for all the twinning delegations, where new contacts were made with Deputy head of Andrésy St Exupéry School, Marie-Chantal Vie. We hope this will lead to some further school exchanges. Meanwhile Murielle Marty of Andrésy Primary Schools gave us an update on the active exchange with Oundle & Warmington Primary Schools, liaising with Oundle-based Nathalie Kernick who had sent over an album made by our pupils for their young French friends.

 

Saturday activity for twin-town youngsters included badminton matches for the 2 PWS Oundle pupils with their Andrésy friends from last year’s visit to Oundle and a football competition for 12-13 year-olds between Andrésy and the Dutch and German twin towns (regrettably Oundle footballers could not be represented because of league commitments), apparently won by the German team, and a barbecue.

 

Saturday evening saw some 300 people, including local townsfolk and all the Oundle visitors including the Bridge Club, at a very enjoyable multinational party and meal for all delegations in the Julien Green Centre with wonderful French live accordion music and a mainly oldies disco.

 

On Sunday morning a friendly sumptuous Brunch was held before all the Twinning delegations said goodbye, with the Germans and Dutch getting on their coach for the 700km trip ( the towns are 25 km from each other either side of the Dutch-German border), whilst the Oundle twinners returned by car or Eurostar, or even continued elsewhere in France on holiday.

 

Later the Bridge Club ended their bridge exchange with a Sunday evening meal, starting with a reception which included Christophe Bizot our Oundle Twinning contact in Andrésy and Paul Hutton, a local Oundle resident whose wife was one of the players.

 

Special thanks to Christophe Bizot and of course to Jean Pierre Dos Santos, the Andrésy twinning chairman, for all their hard work and for theirs and Hugues Ribault, the Mayor’s wonderful hospitality. Thanks to all who came from Oundle, this seemed like a successful step in our developing twinning relationship with Andrésy.

 

* Andrésy and Haren Cyclists are organizing a 700km social ride from Haren in Germany to Poland in May and invite Oundle cyclists to join them.

 

Also, on Sunday 28^th November, the annual Andrésy “20 Bornes” road run of 2.5km to 20km for all ages is asking for Oundle participants.