Bristol Bordeaux Partnership - Newsletter October 2024 - Recent twinning events and future planned social evenings

Bristol Bordeaux Partnership Newsletter.

Welcome to the latest newsletter from the Bristol Bordeaux Partnership (BBP) for October 2024. Today we reflect on some recent twinning events and future planned social evenings.

BBP & ABB members meal

A few members of our Bordeaux sister organisation - the Association Bordeaux - Bristol- visited Bristol in October and, as part of their visit, BBP hosted them for a meal on Wednesday October 23rd at the Audley Redwood complex in Failand.  With many BBP members in attendance the evening went very well. And of course there were brief "thank you" speeches by Mike Healey, the chair of BBP and by Valerie Bonnett, the Presidente of ABB.  BBP also took our ABB colleagues on a tour of The Georgian House in Clifton, for coffee at St Georges' and on a sightseeing day in Bath. 

Thoughts are no doubt already turning to 2025!

Mini Assistants Scheme  

As in previous years BBP is working with Bristol City Council, the City Council in Bordeaux, Bristol University and our sister twinning organisation the Association Bordeaux - Bristol to arrange for students from each city to spend 2 weeks in local schools. Planning is underway for 2025 already. We're also excited to announce that the we are working with the University of the West of England Bristol (UWE)  to hopefully extend the scheme to UWE teaching undergraduates in 2025.  

Wine Tasting - BBP's pre Christmas social

A reminder that BBP member  and WSET qualified wine educator Ian Abraham has offered to run a wine tasting evening for BBP members on Friday November 29th at the Bristol Commonwealth Society. This evening, which should be both fun and informative, will focus on the wines of Bordeaux and its environs. Tickets will cost £20 per head and will include the wine (of course) and bread and cheese snacks. So that we can gauge demand (and how much wine we'll need!) if you are interested and haven't yet already told us, please contact either Mark Packham on Mark.packham003@gmail.com or Gill Hood on  gannahd1@outlook.com and let them know.  We will confirm details nearer the date.

Bristol Junior Chamber of Commerce.

Together with Zoe Gibbons, International Twinning Officer for Bristol City Council, BBP met with Connor Jones, the Vice President of the Bristol Junior Chamber of Commerce.  We discussed how to create lasting links between the businesses of Bristol and their counterparts in Bordeaux via the JCI Bordeaux This would help with the City Council's stated objective of developing business links contained in their formal Memorandum of Understanding with Bordeaux  We identified a number of possible future twinning topics and we will keep you informed of new developments in future newsletters.

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