Grußworte der Präsidenten
President’s Message
Much has happened since our last newsletter.
Ten of us made the trip to Paderborn and were shown a wonderful time by our hosts. After recovering from the flight we had excursions to an outdoor mu- seum that showed how our ancestors lived. After that we visited the Hermanns- denkmal, commemorating the victory over the Roman legions. On Monday morning we had a very nice reception at the Rathaus with Mayor Paus. This was followed by a tour of the City Center led by Doctor Allendorf. The Fare- well Dinner was well attended with the usual exchange of thanks and gifts.
I would like to extend, on behalf of all the Belleville Sister Cities members who made the trip, my personal thanks to our hosts, all the DAFK members and Bernd Broer and his wife, Barbara. And especially, THANK YOU to Doctor Otmar Allendorf and Helga for a well planned and interesting visit.
We all made it safely home and are looking forward to their next visit in 2014 to help us celebrate Belle- ville’s Bicentennial.
Now onto current events.
It has been a very warm and dry summer in Belleville but that has not seemed to affect this summer’s ac- tivities. We have a group of students in Germany having a cool and wet visit. Our Membership Apprecia- tion Dinner was a lot of fun. Thanks to Doris Roach, Norma Bergkoetter and her crew, Helen Fiedler, Theresa Fritz and Hilda Koluch. And the Stammtisches have continued.
Hopefully the weather will cool down by the Oktoberfest and the Taste of Germany dinner. Yes, it is that time again. Planning for these two events has started. All we are in need of now are lots of volunteers to man the events.
We begin the Oktoberfest on September 20th with setting up the stand at 5:00 PM. The event starts at noon on Friday the 21st and continues through Saturday the 22nd. Please contact Wayne Reichling, Jr. if you can help in the beer stand and any of the following three ladies if you can help in the food stand: Marie Reichling, Norma Bergkoetter or Theresa Fritz.
Rich Berkel has indicated that he needs help setting up at Fischers starting at noon on October the 7th. All of their e-mail addresses are listed at the end of the newsletter. We could use everyone’s help to make these two events successful. The profits are needed to continue funding our Youth Exchanges. Costs have risen considerably in the past few years. Please contact the above individuals as soon as possible and be generous with your time.
Our next membership meeting will be at Fischer’s on Thursday, August 16th. Please let Hilda Koluch know if you will be attending. See you then.
Jerry Reilmann
News from Paderborn
Dear Friends in Belleville and Around,
While you were hit by the heat wave, Paderborn was waiting for a real summer. Now with the Libori Fest ahead the weather has changed and we are having a warm period.
So when the youth group arrived on Friday, July 13th, we had a lot of rain, a weather situation which went on for some days. Unfortunately we could- n’t send some of the rain to you. The stay of the youth group of 12, to- gether with their chaperons Andy Gaa and Aaron Keeney, is coming to its end. They’ll leave on August 2nd. Then they can look back on several ex- cursions such as to the North Sea and to Berlin, the German capital. Mayor Paus received them at the Rathaus on July 19th. During their stay they got familiar with German family life and with the life in Paderborn, a city of 148.000 inhabitants, also learning about the history and culture of another people.
At present there also are two students here from Belleville on a return visit to last year’s sister city cultural exchange: Chris Crawford and David Swartz who happened to celebrate his 18th birthday here.
Judith Friede who was in Belleville on the cultural exchange last year will go back for some weeks at the end of July. There were also some ex changes on a more private basis: Kilian Sprenkamp spent some time in Belleville in July and Alexsis from Belleville has now come here for a few weeks.
As mentioned in May’s Newsletter, 5 students from Paderborn will come to Belleville on August 17th for a three month stay.
These activities show how lively the sister city youth program is and how important it has become for our mutual understanding.
Of course the visit of the official delegation from BSC in April is well remembered. In June, Marilyn and Judith Schulte from Saint Louis, who are members of BSC, stayed here for more than two weeks and toured the places where their ancestors had come from. DAFK was happy to have them here. They also took part in this year’s Dogwood Fest.
About 70 DAFK members went to the spa town 20 km east of Paderborn, Bad Driburg: http:// en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bad_Driburg. Here we had a tour of the company “Leonardo” producing glass- ware and decorative items: http://www.leonardo.de (change to English by clicking on “eng” in the up- per right corner). Most impressive were the showrooms in a building designed as a “glass cube”. To learn more about this go to http://www.architonic.com/aisht/leonardo-glass-cube-3deluxe/5100446. A buffet dinner at one of Bad Driburg’s restaurants topped this wonderful day excursion.
Last but not least, we congratulate BSC on now having a web page of their own.
https://sites.google.com/site/bellevillesistercities/
Best wishes,
Bernd Broer
President
Dr. Otmar Allendorf
Secretary