WINCHESTER-LAON TWINNING ASSOCIATION

NEWSLETTER MAY 2003

LAON VISIT TO WINCHESTER JUNE 6-9

Les Laonnois viennent!

Our friends from Laon will be arriving shortly. Most of the planning and preparations are in hand and the host families will be expecting their guests. Apart from those of you who are hosting, we hope that as many members as possible will join the weekend of planned activities and so take the opportunity to meet up with friends and give the Committee your support. Here is the plan for the weekend.

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Friday 6 June. The French coach is due to arrive at the Worthy Lane Car Park (by the Moat House Hotel) at about 5 p.m. Hosts will meet their guests and return home for an evening meal.

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Saturday 7 June. A 49-seater coach has been booked to join the French coach for a day's excursion to Oxford. Both coaches will leave the Worthy Lane Car Park at 10 a.m. You can chose either to bring a picnic or buy a lunch in Oxford. The coaches will set us down at Christchurch Meadows. You can picnic in the meadows if you want to and arrange to meet up with each other there. You will be free to see this beautiful, historic University City and admire the "dreaming spires" and ancient architecture at your leisure.

There are so many interesting things to do in Oxford, both indoors and out, whether it be admiring the beautiful buildings, the many free museums, the oldest Botanical garden in England, the Bodleian Library, Sheldonian Theatre, a Bus-top tour of the city or the Museum of Modern Art. Some of the famous colleges founded in medieval times are free and others are fairly inexpensive to enter. Guided tours are often available at convenient times for small groups. We hope to have a number of maps and mini-guides to share out to enable you to find your way around if you are not familiar with the city.

We plan for everyone to meet up again at FREVD'S in Walton Street at 4.00 p.m. to enjoy English Cream tea and Cakes together (coffee and squash will also be available). Freud's (FREVD) is a spacious, refurbished café housed in a neo-classical style former church building with stunning glass windows and Pre-Raphaelite apse mural, unique in Oxford. The coaches will collect us from there and we expect to be back at the Worthy Lane Car Park at about 6.30 p.m.

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Sunday 8 June. This is to be a free day with host families. For the official guests and first-time French visitors and their hosts, The Mayor of Winchester will greet them at Abbey House at 12 noon and welcome them to Winchester and offer light refreshments. There is a safety limit of 40 people in the Reception Room at any one time. If you want to show your visitors inside the Cathedral, there is a fairly short time between services, say from about 12 noon to 2.30 p.m., when you can wander around, perhaps with the assistance of a French-speaking guide.

On Sunday evening at 7.00 p.m., we shall all meet at the Littleton Memorial Hall for a Bring and Share cold buffet supper and dancing to music by live musicians. Again, we are expecting all of our members to come and share in the fun. Please bring with you a contribution of a main course and a dessert for a substantial sit-down supper, enough for yourselves and a little more, and arrive with your food before 7.30 p.m. The Committee will provide bread, salad, wine and soft drinks.

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Monday 9 June. Our visitors depart from the Moat House Car Park in the morning, the time to be advised.

The Association has been able to subsidise both the day out at Oxford and the Social Evening at Littleton thanks to the proceeds from Kate Morgan's recent concert, for which we all wish to thank her.