DUNBAR AND DISTRICT TWINNING ASSOCIATION     NEWSLETTER June, 2008.

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BBQ

This year’s social event for past, present and possibly future members of the association is taking the form of a BBQ at Belhaven Church Stables on 6th September from 5pm onwards. We are selling tickets at £ 3:50 ; mainly in order to help us cater for the numbers planning to come along. Please contact Fay, our secretary, or any other committee member, for tickets.  Please bring friends and family and prepare to have a good time, knowing that if the weather is terrible the stables can provide welcome shelter

AGM talk

Our guest speaker at the AGM in February was Miss Katherine Duguid.  Katherine gave an account of her recent visit to Lignieres:

Katherine thanked the Dunbar and District Twinning Association for giving her family the opportunity to become interested in France. During a Dunbar Grammar School exchange with Lignieres College Katherine had made friends with some of the students. The friendships developed through emails and a mutual exchange was arranged.  Katherine thanked the Association for subsidising this exchange by paying for her flights.
When in Lignieres Katherine stayed just outside the town and traveled into the college to attend classes every day. At first she found this very difficult but she soon learned to cope. The school hours are different – from 9am to 5 pm and the lunchtime was different: there was very little variety in food available and the students were not permitted to leave the school grounds during the day.
People were very nice and welcoming and her confidence grew. Katherine felt the teachers were stricter; one even threw a chair at a student! 
Unfortunately the 2 girls who returned this exchange did not seem to settle well in Dunbar. Katherine was disappointed that they didn’t appear to make an effort to speak English or to mix with other students.
Katherine concluded her talk by thanking the Association once again for this opportunity.

OfficeBearers

• Chairperson:  Stephen Bunyan: 01368 86
• Vice Chairperson: Alison Tossell: 01368 864891
• Treasurer: Joy Smeed: 01368 862502
• Secretary:  Fay Stanton: 01368 862634
• Minute Secretary: Rona Starr: 01368 862758
• East Lothian Council representative: Cllr. Jackie Bell. 01368 863110
• Committee members: Peter Armstrong and Rae Halliday or alternate.

Lifeboat Day

Look out for our stall at the annual lifeboat day on 19th July and also at the Lifeboat Fun Day on 30th August. If you are free on either day then help would be very welcome behind the stalls.

Trip to Lignieres

Thanks to Barbara Wyllie for this account of her trip to Lignieres for a confirmation ceremony.

In May 2008 Lynda and Angus Jeffrey and Jim and I had the pleasure of attending the Profession de Foi of Gabriel Soulat at the Notre Dame de Puyferrand in Chatelet.
We have known the Soulats since before Gabriel was born. We met when they attended the inauguration ceremony for the twinning of Dunbar and Lignieres  so this was a very special occasion not only for their family but for us.

This was the first time we had made the journey ourselves and it was quite exciting as we drove closer to Lignieres to see so many familiar names of places where we have visited and received hospitality over the years. This was a chance to 'join the dots' between all these small towns.

Solange had asked Lynda if she would mind playing the organ as people arrived at the church. What Lynda did not know was that the church did not have an organist and all the singing was normally led by a cantor. He was very quick to take advantage of the opportunity to use Lynda and she was very soon involved in the entire ceremony. There were 11 boys and girls to be confirmed and the church was full of all their proud parents and relatives. During this formal ceremony which lasted an hour and half the church doors were left open and the younger children ran in and out which only reminded us that this was a very family affair.

After much photographing the Soulat family and guests were treated to a meal which can only be described as a gastronomic delight.  I was unaware that it is quite usual for meals to last 5 -6 hours -  8 courses, with a different wine per course, finished with Surprise de Gabriel - a grand piano made from choux pastry puffs and sesame seed brittle for the piano lid, My mouth is watering again at the memory of it. We were then invited to play petanque which we accepted as the next best thing to a siesta which was not offered. What we were not aware of at the time was that this distraction was only to clear people from the hall so that it could be set up again for supper!!

As you will have gathered some things in our chosen twinning area never change. The hospitality and friendliness of all we met was as warm as usual.

The Pentecost weekend is a national holiday in France so there were fairs and fiestas in many towns and villages.  Our only regret was that as usual the time to leave came too soon and we were not able to stay for the L'Ane de Berry Festival in Lignieres the following day.    ------ Next year perhaps. 

Plans are well advanced for Charlotte Ormston, from Dunbar, to visit Lignieres in August for work experience. The association is sponsoring this visit and an additional grant has been awarded through the Educational Trust. We anticipate that Charlotte will be staying with a family in Lignieres and experiencing a variety of working placements where she will have the chance to improve her language skills with the locals. 
Plans are also being made to host and provide work experience for 2 students from Lignieres in August.  After many years of trying it looks as though a work experience scholarship exchange is becoming part of our yearly calendar.

CONGRATULATIONS

to Sheilagh Fallon on becoming Head of Languages at Dunbar Grammar School. We look forward to many years of collaboration with Sheilagh, and the staff and students at the Grammar and all the primary schools.