April 2024 Newsletter: Twinning Activities & Anniversaries.

Bristol Bordeaux Partnership Newsletter.

Welcome to the latest newsletter from the Bristol Bordeaux Partnership (BBP) for April 2024. Today we reflect on a month of twinning activities with our fellow City twinning organisations.

40th Anniversary of Bristol's twinning with Oporto

April saw the visit  to Bristol of a delegation from Oporto, one of Bristol's other twinned cities. The delegates included Jose Constantino, Deputy Consul General and Karen Alderson, the wife of Marmaduke Alderson, who set up the twinning of Bristol and Oporto 40 years ago.

The visit was to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the formal signing of the twinning of Bristol and Oporto and saw the raising of the Portuguese flag outside of City Hall.  

Bristol Bordeaux Partnership were invited to attend, together with representatives of the other 5 twinning organisations.

The flag raising was followed by speeches, music and coffee and cakes in City Hall.Hopefully we have made some friends for life and improved further the links between Bristol Bordeaux Partnership and our sister Oporto team.

40th anniversary - part 2

Prior to and after the flag raising, everyone was thoroughly entertained by an orchestra from Oporto University.

They performed some excellent Portuguese  songs and demonstrated some impressive flag twirling skills. 

Bristol Bordeaux Partnership will have to think of how to match the entertainment in a few years time when we all celebrate the 80th anniversary of Bristol's twinning with Bordeaux!

Bristol City Council's "Twinning Tree"

The Lord Mayor, Paul Goggin and Zoe Gibbons, Bristol City Council's International Twinning Officer were joined by a number of dignitaries, including Bristol's Mayor Marvin Rees and Anne Kennard of BITA, to mark the erection of  Bristol's "Twinning Tree" on Bristol's College Green. 

The signpost reflects the city's enduring links with our twinned cities and of course includes signs pointing to each of those twinned cities - Bordeaux, Hannover, Tiblisi, Oporto, Beira, Guanzhou and Puerto Morazon.

And there's room on the signpost for any more future twinned cities!

Bristol City Council's Twinning Tree - part 2

Each "arm" of the signpost is designed to reflect the style of street signs in their respective countries. You can go and see the "twinning tree" on College Green outside of City Hall. 

Vivien Brown and Gill Hood joined the inauguration party on behalf of BBP and learnt a lot about Fernand Philippart , the subject of Bordeaux's street sign.

BITA Quiz night

Each year the charitable organisations who manage the twinning activities with Bristol's 7 twinned cities abroad compete for the Bristol International Twinning Association (BITA)) quizzing title.

This year Zoe Gibbons, Bristol City Council's International Twinning Officer kicked off the event at the Black Swan pub in Westbury on Trym (and joined the Beira Mozambique team), Viv Brown arranged a great spread of food and Mark Atherton acted as quizmaster.

The Bristol Bordeaux teamed triumphed this year and we all look forward to a repeat event (if not necessarily a repeat result)  in 2025.

Group visit to Bordeaux this June

25 members of BBP will be visiting Bordeaux this June, visiting our sister organisation in Bordeaux, the Association Bordeaux Bristol, and enjoying the sights of Bordeaux. 

For those of you joining this tour there will be a social event on May 1st at The Avon Gorge Hotel bar, where we will discuss the logistics of the trip. We look forward to seeing you at 18.15 that evening. 

We hope that these updates on the recent activities of BBP are of interest and may even prompt you to want to become more involved and to help us with some of these initiatives. If you want to know more, please reply to this email. We'd love to be able to spread the message re twinning in general and Bristol's links with Bordeaux in particular.

A bientôt!

Mike Healey (Chair of BBP)  and Mark Atherton (Secretary)  for Bristol Bordeaux Partnership

www.bristolbordeaux.org