CHAIRMAN’S REPORT
FOR THE YEAR 2012/13

CHAIRMAN’S REPORT 2013

Chairman Clive Armstrong

This is my first Chairman’s report, we have had a very busy year as a committee.

2012 as your know marked the 10th anniversary of the Partnerschaft and 70 Years since the deportation of the Internees

I will summarize some of the events.

At the end of September we welcomed our friends from Bad Wurzach for the St Helier Anniversary Celebrations,

  • The parish held a municipal diner at the Savoy Hotel in which the Burgermeister Roland Burkle gave an after dinner speech.
  • The following day we had lunch and a visit to the War tunnels, in the afternoon we attended the Official Book Launch at the Town Hall attended by Our Bailiffand other dignatories.
  • In the evening Dr Gilly Carr gave a talk about her book and the exhibition at the Jersey Museum, followed by an excellent meal and closing speeches at the Museum Brassiere.

During the first week of October, we attended the Bad Wurzach Celebrations with an official delegation consisting of our Bailiff and Chief Minister.

  • On the evening of our arrival we attended an outdoor presentation, with the slides being projected onto the rear wall of the Schloss which was very moving.
  • We them moved to the nearby school for a speech from our Bailiff followed by a presentation from Giesler regarding the book which was exceedingly well attended by the locals.
  • The evening ended with a reception and music played by local students.
  • On the Saturday we visited Ravens burg the weather was so good we could eat and drink outside.
  • In the evening we attended a memorial service for those who did not return from the camp.
  • We then moved to the Schloss unveiling a memorial plaque in the front garden.
  • The day ended with an excellent diner in the Schloss, the highlight of the evening was when three former internees spoke of their experiences.
  • On the Sunday after the official party had left there was an unveiling of Plaques within the town

We are grateful to Angela in overseeing the arrangements for both the Jersey and Bad Wurzach events.

 

Filed of Remembrance

At the end of October the Partnerschaft for the first time attended Filed of Remembrance at the cenotaph, in which committee members and families each placed a single wooden cross for each of the internees that did not return. This was followed by a gathering at the town hall in which coffee was served with a tipple of our choice if needed. Hopefully this was the start of an event in the Partnerschafts calendar which will be continued for many years to come.

 

Remembrance Sunday

The Remembrance Sunday Service was again well attended. Our annual Howard Davis service had a slight hiccup in which the reverend failed to turn up due to an oversight on his behalf; But Simon did an excellent last minute job of conducting the service.

Annual get together

The annual get together again was a huge success. The change in format on the catering side managed by Matthias was well received, we thank him for all his efforts.

 

68th anniversary of their liberation.

On Sunday 28th April, the St Helier Bad Wurzach Partnerschaft celebrated the 68th anniversary of their liberation.

  • About 45 former internees, family members and friends attended a service held at the War Tunnels Memorial Garden. A short wonderful service was carried out by Iain MacFirbhisigh (Rev), this was followed me reading out the names of those whom did not return, as I was doing this my daughters Rosanna and Lillian laid a red rose on each of the twelve memorial plaques, with the assistance of Stuart and his family
  • Following this we returned inside and had an excellent Cream Tea provided by Barbara of the War Tunnels.
  • One former internee had his daughter and family over from the UK, they had never seen the War Tunnels so Cheryl very kindly provided some tickets for them to see all about their Grandpa’s escapades.
  • All in all an excellent way to remember the liberation.
  • Many thanks to Stuart and his family for organizing this.

Website and Facebook page; this year I redesigned the website making it more user friendly and adding more information. Also this year we started a Facebook page which lists all the current and past events with pictures and hopefully comments from those who attended.

Looking forward to the coming year, I hope that the offers of assistance for different events to be managed by individual committee members will continue as the recent events organized by Matthias and Stuart proved to be a huge success, grateful thanks are also due to Angela for organizing events, I know it takes a lot of time but if they are split and shared around it helps take the pressure off individuals.

As with the two new events we participated in the last year I hope new ideas will still surface and we raise the profile in the Island as what we stand for?

 

70th anniversary of the liberation 2015

In two years time it will be the 70th anniversary of the liberation, I know it seems a little away but we need to start preparing for this monument us event in our Islands history with events both in Jersey and Bad Wurzach, we would welcome any ideas.

Finally I would like to thank all of the committee for their time and support for my first year as chairman, and hope I can come up to your expectations in the future.

My apologies to anyone whom I have neglected to mention but thank you.

Clive Armstrong

Chairman

May 15th 2013