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