Welcome to Long Wittenham

Twinning is the establishment of a special relationship between communities in different countries.

Twinning is an activity that should enrich the life of a community and aims to promote tolerance, international understanding and respect for others.

Twinning encompasses a wide range of activities including among others cultural exchanges, sharing of expertise, the creation of trade links, technical co-operation, environmental action and the improvement of language skills.

It is not an excuse for tax-paid holidays for members of the Council or anyone else. It is not a "red-tape" exercise in order to have some extra heading on the village signs. It is not an extra burden on local or other taxes (see below for details of financing).

The chance to meet people from a community similar to ours in another country, either by visiting the twin community, receiving visitors, or both. The possibility of the children from our village having links, possibly by pen-friends, with children in France and improving their language skills. It is intended to be of benefit to everyone who wishes to participate and not any particular group. At a village level the emphasis is very much on a small-scale social contact rather than the larger business contacts more relevant to a larger town, although there could be small business links if this was desired.

How involved you become is entirely up to you. Obviously we need an active committee to organise visits, hosts for those visiting us, find and raise funds. If you wish to be involved at this level your enthusiasm would be very welcome. However you may just be interested in visiting France, in just receiving visitors, or both. The choice is yours.

If you wish to participate there is a subscription of just £5 per household per year. The visits to France have to be largely self-financing since we receive no money for these, so each person has to pay a fair share of the travel costs. But when we get there of course we are put up and fed (very well!) by our hosts. The visits so far have always been over a weekend, going out on the Friday and coming back on the Sunday afternoon/evening, so the only time one may have to take off work is on the Friday. We have always said that we will subsidise anyone who has problems with travel costs, especially young people, but these costs are generally kept quite low by making sure that all vehicles are well filled. The visits here by parties from Thaon also have to be paid for, of course, but we have had no problem so far in raising sufficient funds with various social events through the year to pay for the entertainment of our French guests. These events have also proved most enjoyable. The money raised has also been used to pay a contribution towards the French classes at the school, and to inaugurate a bursary payable to a suitable candidate from the village wishing to go to France to improve their language skills.

Last update 1st February 2004