Bridgwater Mayor on the Square in UH |
This year we had a
shake up of Twinning in Bridgwater. We
agreed that we have 6 twin towns. 4 official ones and 2 that we’re working
on. We decided to target the EU and it’s
attractive funding and training packages
and to do this in co-operation with our key partners around Europe by
identifying projects and people who would benefit from them.
Uherske Hradiste in the Czech Republic has been one of
Bridgwater’s twin towns since 1992 and as an ‘accession’ country has a good
track record of achieving EU funding. Together we have brought in funds to our
2 towns through mutual co-operation on projects ranging from Family Centres to
Town Planning to student exchange projects. UH council is a strong supporter of
International links and has a Twinning committee, a grants officer, a jet setting
programme of exchanges and a budget to match. In Bridgwater we tend to treat twinning activities as a
hobby and Brits who visit pay their own way.
This week we took a delegation over to UH to investigate and
kick start some potential EU projects and arm twisted a useful team along to
back up our Mayor and Mayoress, Steve and Stella Austen.
A delegation
Steve and Stella sign the visitors book |
Steve Austen has been a councillor for just 3 years and a
Mayor for just 3 weeks. He agreed to lead the delegation to support the town
council's policy of encouraging beneficial EU link projects. In UH they have a Mayor with full executive
powers and a workforce, including a Town Police force, at his fingertips
covering everything from housing to environment to arts and culture.
Bridgwater
Town Council has an unpaid Mayor with a
limited hospitality budget and a workforce of 3.
To make the links match up we
need to include Sedgemoor District Council. On this occasion we were able to
take along Estates Valuer Tim Mander , Press Officer Claire Faun and
Environment boss Adrian Gardner.
Town Wall remnant world |
Flying out from Gatwick to Vienna the group was met by Karel – a man in a minibus sent by UH
council, and whisked the 2 hour journey through the Austrian Czech border lands to the
heart of Moravia and UH itself. Guided by twinning officer Adela Tobolova and
shadowed by International Commissar Smedley, the group set about their first
priority – watching the England v Uruguay Match.
Temperatures plummeted in Moravia as blankets were issued on the
terraces, and temperatures soared in Rio Capitalisto as our brave boys in white
headed inevitably home.
Down to business and the next day we met the UH council
leaders in their ornate Town Hall –and every Mayor who goes over there says “We
must get something like this in Bridgwater”.
And of course we should. UH is a
historic town and proud of it’s past –even though, like Bridgwater, much of it
has disappeared. Castles, fortifications, moats and gates have all gone under the developers hammer.
There museum has an interactive
computerised simulation of a walk through their city in 1670-when it was a
major fortress on the border with Hungary with it’s network of Vauban glacis’
and canalised defensive ditches. I'm sure some bright spark could get a grant
to do that in the Blake Museum.
Cabbage soup in abundance
Adrian Gardner is shown flood mapping data |
Main visit of the day was the Bata University. Although
based in nearby county town Zlin, the Uni has a faculty based in UH. In a new
housing development created from a former army barracks. The Department of
Crisis Management had a special interest in flood response and nuclear safety
and this was the place to focus on for our links. We were shown an interesting
device they had developed called ‘Drone 2’ which was basically a remote
controlled flying camera that could be sent into areas of flooding and send
back data that was crucial to understanding the developing situation. The key
target of this link-up was to put Bata Uni together with Bridgwater College and
this seems now likely with a special focus on the Energy Skills centre back
in Bridgwater.
Drone 2 takes to the skies |
All the Sedgemoor officers present had worked at different
levels of Flood response during the recent Somerset emergencies and were able
to discuss the differing approaches with authority with their Czech
counterparts and take back or share valuable information and ideas.
Lovely leather trousers
The cultural event of the month in UH was the Kunovice Leto
. Kunovice is one of the 3 towns that make up historical Uherske Hradiste, and
this was basically a childrens folk music and dance festival. We were taken to
see various floor shows of whirling folk costumed kids ensembles from all
across East Europe – Romanians, Slovenians, Hungarians , Russians and at one
point taken outside of the town to taste the ‘mineral waters’ in the spa town
of Luhacovice. Almost being physically sick, the stout Mr Mander commented on
the taste of sulphur and similarity to rotting eggs. No-one said getting
healthy would be easy! For him it had the opposite effect.
Tim and Adrian in costume |
Back in UH the 3rd town of the local triumvirate ‘Stare
Mesto’ was suddenly the focus of attention. We watched the 6-9 year olds
singing and dancing competition. The Mayor of Stare Mesto was the judge. Stare
Mesto contestants were surprisingly successful in every single category. Who could have predicted
!
Debbie Harry
Our next important visit was the Akropolis family
centre. Fronted by Dagmar Mega,
Akropolis have been successful in numerous EU grant projects in the past and
have linked up with almost all the family centres in Bridgwater. Now we wanted
to widen our link and see what else we could do. This meant bringing in Erasmus
funding by co-operation with the Bridgwater College. We spoke of projects
ranging from the UK tradition of volunteering –almost unknown in the Czech Rep
with their history of virtual full employment, working with special needs
departments especially in the area of training, and projects where we could
establish work placements in each others towns.
Working with the Akropolis was
statuesque,blond, pop starlet lookalike, Marcela Bradova from nearby Kromeriz, who informed us that the first project
had already been approved and so we came away with an offer of a placement for a lively
young UK worker who might like to work with kids at their centre for 12 months
starting in September – for more information contact us here at Bridgwater
international!
Dagmar at the Akropolis centre snoezelen room |
One of our most important contacts in UH is Antonin Machala
who started the link back in 1991. Antonin runs the Altech factory in UH and
every year his workers come with our workers on a sporting trip (exclusively
football thus far) to another partner town elsewhere in Europe. This Summer we
agreed to go to Sarvar in Hungary – another of our target partner towns. Watch
this space.
Raving Ambassador
'Mildman' Gardner is introduced to 'Wildman' Napthine |
One of our most enigmatic exports has been people. Several
Bridgwater people have uprooted themselves and settled in UH. The mysterious
Andrew ‘Wildman’ Napthine has been in UH since we wouldn’t let him back on the
original tour bus back in 1992. A teacher and , in a strange way, something of
a ‘roving ambassador’ he kept popping up. And so on the final evening we let
him join us as we went to the main
Kunovice Festival itself . The highlight of the evening was the band PULS from
Slovakia whose stage musical version of cymbal music took everyone by storm.
Shortly before an out of control hot air balloon nearly landed on us before
veering off towards a minaret. And then there were fireworks. Not the ones you
might have prayed for involving Wildman and a lathe, but a genuinely startling
display of pyrotechnics that lit up the Moravia plain as night fell.
Slovakian group PULS |
Brush and Wash-up
There was plenty of time to consider future projects.
Evening socials in wine cellars with almost everyone who dropped by picking up
and playing some instrument with amazing talent and ‘light snacks’ at lunch
times which turned into diet busters for
the rest of the group except me and my endless plates of salad. Without a doubt
we’ll be linking Akropolis, the Bata University and Altech with Bridgwater partners
through the forthcoming years and the Town Council were also especially keen on
one idea to link up our police forces. An idea that found some support in the
Avon and Somerset constabulary so the prospect of uniformed British police
showing little old ladies across the road in UH while armed Czech response
units deal with the issues in Blake Gardens might not seem so fanciful….
The delegation(s) |
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