Come and Join Us!
The Annual General Meeting of the Association will be held on Monday 2 November 2009 in the Royal British Legion, Bathford. We will meet in the bar at 7:15pm ready for a 7:30pm start.

A warm welcome is extended to all so please join us, whether you are an existing supporter of the Association or would like to find out what it is all about. If you have friends who might be interested, why not bring them along too?

Our Chair, Maureen Breeze will give a review of the year with a slide show, when you will be able to see something of our activities over the past year. We will also give some early consideration to what to include in the activity programme for the next visit from Artannes in early July 2010.

Election of the committee will take place. Please see over the page for details of the current committee. All posts are open and if you would like to take part in the running of our group, please contact Maureen on 852444 or Peter Rideal on 858322.

We are already working on our programme of activities for 2010 and I note below some dates for you to put in your diary:

Soirée
An evening of supper and fun is being arranged for Saturday 13th March 2010 in the Parish Hall. Further details will follow in January.

Visit from Artannes
We are expecting a group to visit us for about 4 days over the first weekend in July 2010. Initial information from Artannes suggests that some 50 people are contemplating coming over!

Open Gardens
This event is also in course of planning and will take place on Sunday 4 July 2010. It is expected that this will form part of the programme for the French visit.

New Projects
Conscious of the fact that the Association is holding spare funds and has the expressed intent of trying to get the interest of young people and also activity groups, we have been looking at ways to achieve this end. Chris Eker, our Treasurer is looking after these projects and he has prepared information sheets to go out to anyone interested. These are outlined in the sections below, so if you know of any young people or groups who might be interested, please put them in touch with Chris on 01225 743222 or by email at eker@tatush.demon.co.uk.

'Allo 'Allo
Are you under 21 and live in Bathford or Kingsdown? Are you interested in visiting France and making some friends over there?

If so then the Bathford and Kingsdown Twinning Association would like to help you.

We are linked up with Artannes-sur-Indre which is a village about the same size as us near Tours in the Loire valley. We want to encourage young people to go there and add to the warm links and contacts we already have.

We can fix you up with accommodation- probably for about a week- and also contribute to the costs of your stay up to £200.

What you need to do is to come up with a project which you want to carry out over there. For example:

• You might want to be a reporter and interview French people about some topical issue
• You could do some work experience if we can arrange something suitable
• You could take part in sport or games or music

These are only some ideas and we are open to any suggestions that you may have. The main thing is to have plenty of contact with French people and particularly people of your own age. We hope that it will lead to lots of friendships between French and English young people.

Obviously it would be a big advantage to have some knowledge of French but how important that is will depend upon what you are proposing.

One thing you can be sure of is a warm welcome in France.

Take Your Hobby To France
Calling all inhabitants of Bathford and Kingsdown.

Do you belong to a club or have a hobby/interest which it might be fun to take to France? If so, then the Bathford and Kingsdown Twinning Association would like to help you with contacts, advice and even money!

We are twinned with Artannes-sur-Indre which is a village about the same size as Bathford in the Loire valley near Tours. It is a lively village with plenty of clubs and associations and our committee would like to encourage groups on either side of the Channel with similar interests to get together.

Accommodation would be free in French homes which we could arrange. The hope would be that you will find some good friends over there and in due course you will be putting them up, in your home, when the French organise a return match. The Twinning Association stands ready to contribute up to £200 to the cost of your group trip.

(To be considered a group you need a minimum of 4 people willing to make the journey.)

What you can be sure of is a very warm hospitable welcome in Artannes.