BBP Newsletter: December 2025. UWE, Architecture, Junior Chamber of Commerce. Lord Mayor

BBP Newsletter.

Welcome to the latest newsletter from the Bristol Bordeaux Partnership (BBP) - the last for 2025. Today we reflect on a number of initiatives to promote greater twinning between Bristol and Bordeaux.

University of the West of England (UWE)

There have been two interesting developments related to twinning and UWE.

First, as mention in previous newsletters, BBP has been helping UWE to form a formal partnership with Bordeaux University to drive future collaboration activities between the two institutions. The good news is that the Memorandum of Understanding has been signed by UWE and we're just awaiting confirmation that Bordeaux University have done too. Hopefully by the time of our first newsletter of 2026 we'll be able to confirm that both Universities have signed at that years of future collaboration will follow.

And second, our Chair Mike Healey, who works as an Associate Lecturer at UWE, has helped to organise a hackathon where UWE students propose ideas on how to extend twinning further to appeal to the aspirations of the young people of Bristol and Bordeaux (and our other twinned cities).

We'll share early next year some of the ideas that arose and how they're being taken forward.

Bristol Junior Chamber of Commerce, the Guild of Guardians and the Lord Mayor.

You may recall from the last newsletter that Connor Jones and other members of Bristol's Junior Chamber of Commerce (BJCofC) visited Bordeaux in October to help to build strong ongoing links between the commercial sides of our two cities.

Equally exciting is the planned visit to Bordeaux in 2026 of the Bristol Guild of Guardians, accompanied the Lord Mayor.

So, in conjunction with Zoe Gibbons, Bristol City Council's Twinning Officer, BBP arranged a drinks reception at the Marriot Hotel, where Connor met with Ed Corrigan of the Guild of Guardians and the Lord Mayor, Henry Michallat. We discussed what went well for the BJCofC visit and lessons that could be learnt for the 2026 visit to Bordeaux of the Lord Mayor and the Guild of Guardians.

Here's to an equally productive visit in 2026.

Members' wine tasting

Ian Abrahams hosted another wine tasting evening for BBP members on Friday November 28th. This year the focus was on the wines of The Loire.

Over 20 members learnt about and tested 6 different wines of the Loire, accompanied by some great food laid on by the Commonwealth Institute.

It's fair to say that the evening went well - and at the end of the evening a show of hands voted the Muscadet sur Lie from Fief Guerin as the favourite of the evening.

If you want to read more about thsi event and all Ian's other thoughts on wines check out his blog posting Wine talks and tastings – Bristol Wine Blog

We're now looking forward to 2026's wine tasting evening, which at present is planned to focus on the Rhone valley.

BBP's Annual General Meeting

Advanced notice that the BBP AGM will be held on Tuesday January 20th at City Hall, starting at 18.00.

As well as the formal AGM standing agenda items, such as the financial and membership reports, we will be reviewing a busy 2025 and contemplating more twinning activities in 2026.

We will also be joined by both the Lord Mayor and by Samir Savant, CEO of St George's Bristol, as a guest speaker - further details will follow shortly.

All will be welcome as we look back on 2025 and look forward to 2026.

Bordeaux Architecture students visit to Bristol

Sally Daniels, Senior Lecturer, UWE Faculty of Environment, Architecture & Planning arranged a repeat visit, as per last year, for a team of students from Bordeaux . They visited UWE to study the architecture and social geography of Bristol.

BBP arranged for the team to visit City Hall for a reception with the Mayor, including the chance to sign the City Hall formal visitors' book.

There was also a fascinating talk by Pete Insole on the history of Bristol's city development over the decades including some illuminating interactive maps showing how things have changed.

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.

And finally, we'd like to wish a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to all our members and friends. We hope to see many of you in 2026.

A bientôt!

On behalf of Mike Healey (Chair of BBP) for Bristol Bordeaux Partnership

www.bristolbordeaux.org