Diary Dates  and News:

 

1. There will be a Christmas Coffee morning at the Princess Pavilion on Saturday 21st December. Fancy dress and a Christmas quiz.

Saint-Nazaire Photo Evening October 2024

A Photo Evening was held at Peter and Iris's house on Friday 25th October 2024. Twelve members of the Association met at 7 p.m. to swap and show photographs of our recent, very successful, visit to Saint-Nazaire in September.

Everyone attended brought some drink or something for the buffet (or both) and the food spread on the table was superb. Plenty for everyone but the highlight for me was Mike and Sheila's crab sandwiches. I was warned they were disappearing fast so I grabbed one. Lovely!

The visit to Saint Nazaire was longer than normal twinning trips. It lasted a week and this provided enough photos and videos for the 'film' of the trip to last over thirty minutes. This chronicled the visit and afterwards, member's photos were displayed on the screen.

The evening flew by and was very enjoyable. Thank you to everyone who attended, especially Ian who made it down from Swindon, and thanks you to everybody that contributed to a great evening.

Coffee Morning and Quiz July 2024

On the morning of Saturday 20th July, 18 members of the Falmouth Twinning Association met for coffee and a quiz at the Princess Pavilion. The morning started at 11 a.m. and the time flew by between then and when the party broke up at around 1 p.m.

The quiz was compiled by Steve and it nearly never happened. Steve was called out to a flooded house and was totally engrossed in cleaning up. If Peter had not texted him, he would have completely overlooked the quiz. However, he did arrive and conducted the quiz with aplomb. We were in four teams and, at the end, only one point separated all four. The two teams with the one point lead played a tense tie-break that June and Grenville's team sneaked a win. The prize was a box of chocolates that were graciously handed around to everyone. Amazing how many people were on a diet! (I wasn't, and nicked a loose handful of fudge!)

It was great to see some new faces at the coffee morning. Everyone seemed to enjoy it and roll on the next one. We even got a photo of Tony laughing!!

Falmouth Twinning Discount on Brittany Ferries.

As of today, FTA members will benefit from the following discounts:

 

10% discount for your members' family trips, outside of the exchanges organised by the Twinning Committee, with their vehicle or on foot.


20% discount on the public group rate for the Twinning Committee's foot passenger trips (from 10 or more people).


10% discount on the public group rate for the Twinning Committee's trips by coach.

for more information please contact the Chairman.

First Contact with Saint Nazaire

On Thursday 12th October we eventually established a video link with Saint-Nazaire. Eight members of FTA were present at Peter and Iris's house for the introductions and initial chat between our committees. The 40 minute Zoom slot certainly zoomed by and we had to say farewell too soon.

It was decided that Saint-Nazaire will send a small delegation to Falmouth at the end of March to coincide with the commemoration of Operation Chariot. They will probably spend a few days more with us than the official delegation , cementing our friendship and organising a pathway forward.

 

Flying visit from Douarnenez 18th June 2023

French Flying Visit

 

On Sunday 18th June thirteen members of the Douarnenez Jumelage visit Falmouth on the last leg of their English language course visit to Cornwall. They arrived about noon, parked their two minibuses outside Peter and Iris’s house and, after exchanging library books, went down to the Sea Shanty Festival. Most walked but other had to be taken in one of the minibuses. After enjoying a few shanty group performances and meeting Clair Ingleheart from the Femmes de La Mer, they headed for the Harbour Lights for fish’n’chips (what else?) and the stunning views from the restaurant.

The group returned to Peter and Iris’s around 4:15 p.m. for a glass of wine and nibbles. However, most of them couldn’t face wine after the fish’n’chips so copious amounts of tea, cola and coffee were drunk. Jenny, Nigel and June and Harold joined us for a very lively and entertaining sojourn. We relived the crepe-making evening in Douarnenez in photos and videos. The French, unsurprisingly after the Harbour Lights, hardly touched the finger buffet but they could not resist the Cornish cream tea that Jenny thoughtfully  produced. They disappeared off the plates as fast as Jenny could cut the scones and dollop the jam and cream on.

Peter presented the three Frenchmen present with a Cornish tie each and the ladies with a town badge. Although Francis and the others seldom, if ever, wear ties, they did try them on for an historic photograph.

Some of the discussions, obviously, drifted around the future of the twinning exchanges between Falmouth and Douarnenez. Members on both sides were in favour of it and, after a fervent meeting between Francis their twinning head honcho and Jenny, our membership secretary, Jenny was far more optimistic about our future. Francis said we must keep in touch.

 

The afternoon went on a bit longer than originally planned and the French finally left around 6:20 p.m. to wind their way back to Plymouth and the overnight ferry to Roskoff.


Plaque added to Twinning Tree

 

 

 


On Thursday 7th May, Peter and Nigel met with Simon Penna, the head of parks and gardens, to site the new granite plaque that marks the tree planted to commemorate 30 years of twinning between Falmouth and Douarnenez in Brittany. 
The plaque was purchased from twinning funds held by the council on behalf of the twinning association. It is hoped to have a formal unveiling at a later date. With the mayor, councillor Steve Eva and representatives from Brittany.

the simple inscription reads ' This tree commemorates 30 years of friendship between Falmouth and Douarnenez'.

 

the 30th anniversary was in 2013 when the first tree was planted. That died and was replace with the Scots Pine that is now healthily thriving there.

St Jean Primary School Visits Falmouth

 A party of French children from St. Jean Primary School, Douarnenez visited Falmouth between 3rd and 5th June. The party spent a wet Tuesday morning at Pendennis Castle and, after a picnic lunch, visited the National Maritime Museum in the Afternoon. They spent Wednesday at St Francis School, had a barbecue in the evening and left after breakfast on Thursday.