Wolfgang Thamm has written a brief account of those things which (from their point of view) went ahead in this difficult year.
“As we will not be able to spend either the last days of this year or the start of 2021 together I have put together a brief resume of the year’s activities, which may well have taken place without you knowing about them.
We were able to celebrate the New Year on January 13th, happily and without restrictions. This was supposed to be an anniversary year, with lots of different activities to celebrate our 20 years of twinning with Marquette-lez-Lille and 10 years of twinning with Sleaford, with, as its high point for us, a celebratory get together with guests from our 3 twin towns (in August). On March 3rd the book reading with Cecil Calla, facilitated and co-organised by Cecil Weidhofer still went ahead even though there was some slight unease about the situation.
Harriott Brand’s idea for a linocut project (between 3 towns) was underway. The painting group “Art”, the Youth Club and particularly Cindy Minow at the Fred Vogel School got on so well with the project that they have been sending prints to Harriott for some time.
We were also able to get started with the anniversary booklet. I am grateful to several of our twinning members who have contributed memories, as I am for the contributions from Sleaford, but we have had very little from Marquette. Cecil Weidhofer has now made translations and, in the new year, Dethlef Ulbrich will be adding translations from and into English. Once that is done we will need to organise the articles into a final version ready for printing. In order to do this we will need help with proof reading and the final editing. Please contact me or Volker Heiermann if you have time to help with the proof reading and the skills to get the material ready for printing. The planned displays of photos of Sleaford (in the early part of the year) and Marquette (in the summer) were able to go ahead in the new Town Hall, with the help of Frau Klaus, who is always fully committed to our cause, and of Herr and Frau Schipp, who organised the Marquette display.
Using “social media” we were able to follow the mayoral elections in Marquette and Sleaford. Dominique Legrand is the new mayor in Marquette, having taken up office in May, and the new mayor of Sleaford is the former deputy mayor, Anthony Brand, who is well known to many of you.
Messenger services and social media have also made it possible to maintain good contacts with our twin towns, particularly with Skwierzyna. Contact with Skwierzyna has been strengthened by the activities of the TSG Rot Weiss Petanque Club. Despite all the restrictions personal contacts were maintained until October, but these then had to be reduced and are now no longer possible. Many thanks to the sports club members, particularly Dietrich Harders and Wioletta Kleiber, who have always been ready to pitch in when help was needed.
That’s 2020 in a nutshell. We have achieved more than just a little despite everything. Heartfelt thanks to everyone who has helped; I’ve only mentioned a few by name but there were many more.
It only remains for me to wish you a Happy Christmas and, as always, a good 2021.
Best wishes
Wolfgang Thamm”