CHAIRMAN'S REPORT to the AGM - FEBRUARY 2009

I am pleased to present my report to the AGM.

In terms of exchange visits, there was only the one event in 2008 when a party from Lutterworth, including our President the Mayor and Mrs Seymour went to Chambourcy for a long weekend in May. The party was well received, as ever, and old friendships were renewed and new ones formed. We were able to meet Mme Pascale Baron who is now the Chambourcy Councillor responsible for twinning and we took the opportunity to discuss a number of matters related to the twinning with our contacts there.

It was frustrating that we were not able to progress the youth exchanges further in 2008. It proved impossible to resolve the problems of dates and the essential teacher staffing of the proposed trip of young people from Lutterworth to Chambourcy.

Efforts to arrange a youth trip to Chambourcy in July of 2009, which seemed the only possible date, proved impossible because the sports facilities and manning would not be available in Chambourcy at that time. In order to avoid the concept from lapsing, we invited the French to send a party to Lutterworth in July instead but they were unable to accept that offer because they no longer have access to the same level of funding as in previous years.

There is further issue related to such trips in that, from October this year, a more stringent regime for controlling who can host young people will come into effect when all adults in a hosting family will need to be enrolled on a national register. There is no cost for this registration but it does increase the work required to prepare for a hosted visit and it remains to be seen how willing potential hosts would be to register for what may be a single hosted visit.

It is disappointing that it may not be possible for us to repeat the two very successful visits in 2005 and 2007 but we can look back on them with pride as experiences that the young people involved appreciated greatly.

The most important new development from the discussions that took place in the early part of 2008 and in the May visit has been the establishing of links between schools here in Lutterworth and their Chambourcy equivalents. I am please to report that the College here is in contact with a similar school in St Germain-en-Laye near Chambourcy. The High School is in contact with the College in Chambourcy. Both the Sherrier and Gilmorton Chandler schools are working with the Elementaire school in Chambourcy and this is especially promising now that French is being taught in Primary Schools in England. In spite of the speed of electronic communication, progress seems a little slow at times, but progress there is. Apart form making the initial introductions, the role of the Association is now to hold a watching brief and to leave the development of the links to the schools concerned.

When we were in France in May we learnt that there had been some problems with the visit of French footballers to Lutterworth earlier in 2008. Football exchanges had been a strong feature of the link from the early years of the twinning and I am pleased to be able to report that, having worked with those involved both here and there, all is now well and a party from Lutterworth is going to Chambourcy at the end of May. We are establishing a protocol to cover such trips and I have offered to join the party at the end of May to help ensure that things go well.

We continue to try to develop further links and are still trying to develop exchanges in the business sector and have also recently started to explore the possibility of links between disabled sports people in the two towns.

One of our strengths as an Association is that we get together socially during the year and in 2008 we had a Bangers and Mash Supper, went Skittling, had a Barbecue and a Quiz Night. Apart from enjoying these events, they have provided valuable income of some £400 as the Treasurer will explain. We also took a pitch on the field on the Saturday of Feast Week, as we always do. I am grateful to those who worked to make these events a success.

For 2009, the main event will be the visit to Lutterworth by a party from Chambourcy from 1^st to 4^th May. Plans are well advanced for the visit centred on a trip to the Black Country Museum and a Dinner on the Saturday to celebrate the tenth anniversary of the signing of the Charter in Lutterworth in 1999.

I am grateful to the Committee for their work in the last year but I must make special mention of the work of Sheila and David Jones who are standing down now after playing a major part in recent years as Officers and in working to ensure that events went well.

And that concludes my report.

Martin Willey - Chairman

Previous year's reports 2008