Bristol Hannover Council

At the time of writing, we are halfway through our programme of visits from Hannover this summer: the weekend of 18/19^th July, a great reunion of the youth exchanges from 1965/6 took place, most of the participants not having met since that time! It took months to do the research and find as many as possible on both sides of the Channel, although some had emigrated much further afield e.g. to Australia! The spadework here was done by Ingrid Hüper in Hannover, and Lynne Evans and Jonathan Radnedge in Bristol. They came for the Harbour Festival weekend, so they were lucky with the weather…

Not so Mansha and Jasmin who came to show their art in Upfest on the weekend of 25^th-27^th July (see separate item), when the rain spoilt things somewhat, and the same weekend, Bristol Junior Chamber had a visit from their opposite numbers from Hannover – they had a great weekend visiting the Suspension Bridge, Clifton, Leigh Woods – and Upfest, where we met them and discussed how we can work together in future.

In September, the annual badminton exchange will take place from 4^th-7^th September, with a full weekend of activities planned, and then from 10^th-15^th September, our own biennial exchange will take place, with the Hannover-Bristol Gesellschaft visit. We are looking forward to giving a good ‘send-off’ to the long-serving retiring Chair, Anne von Thadden, and welcoming her successor, Councillor Robert Nicholls, who has dual British and German citizenship, and relations in the Bristol area!

Finally from 25^th-28^th September, there will be a visit, led by Hannover City Council, of an Urban FutureS Group, in the context of Bristol’s Green Capital, and the programme for this will be available later.

The Bristol-Hannover partnership is indeed alive and kicking!

Ann Kennard (Chair)

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