CHAIRMAN’S REPORT
FOR THE YEAR 2018/19

CHAIRMAN’S REPORT 2019

We have had another successful year as a committee,

Field Of Remembrance. At the end of October, we attended the service and commencement of the annual Field of Remembrance, this is the sixth year that the Partnerschaft has been present.

Remembrance Services. Both our remembrance services were again well attended, our event in the afternoon conducted Father Nick Barry was well attended a dry afternoon for once, the tea afterwards was held at the Merton hotel, unfortunately despite Lola confirm all the arrangements on the Friday before the event, the Hotels management failed to inform the staff they were completely unaware of our visit, however once they realized their mistake   they rallied around to accommodate us, and have confirmed to Lola that this years they will make special arrangements as a way of sorry.

November Get together. At the end of November our annual get together at the town hall sadly this was poorly attended, but it was a successful event we had excellent entertainment, by the two primary schools singing carols, we had a raffle in a new format. Closing with a concert from the usual suspects.

Family History Fayre.  In January is year we attended for the second time the Family History Fayre, held at the Jersey Library, This event was a great success with interest show from the general public with many interesting questions and comments, each year this event gets better.

74th Liberation anniversary at the War Tunnels. This years Liberation memorial service and afternoon teas was again held at the War Tunnels. A special thanks to Deacon Ian for conducting the service, Lola and Franclise for their reading and to the Jersey Youth Service for providing readings, a thank you to Stuart and Sarah for organizing the flowers and the laying of roses. Unfortunately the tea was marred by the Café providing Tea, despite confirming our requirements, they did not provide table service and were reluctant to assist when they realized the error, however thanks to the committee members who rallied around to to provide the teas coffees and cakes. 

Looking to the year ahead.

2020 will be a special year, the 75th Liberation, Lola has been working very hard to arrange flights to Bad Wurzach in April, and we are working closely with our German colleagues with this project, hopefully we will have enough numbers of guests to make the trip viable.

In the forthcoming months the committee will be working to provide local events for those internees and families.

As a committee we acknowledge that the internees are getting very frail and are unable to attend many events, to keep the Partnerschaft working successfully we have, in recent months been working closely with Gisela, the chairman of the German team, our committee members will have recently received an email from her, with some ideas how we can involve the next generation to participate in making the Partnerschaft a success for many years to come.

Website, Facebook and Twitter:  Our website each year becomes more popular, we are being contacted regularly by interested parties researching family members for were interned, and we can provide them with detailed information.

A break down to the statistics.

Visitors May 2017-2018, 269 May 2018-2019, 924 and increase of 655 visitors

Pages visited May 2017-2018, 839 May 2018-2019 4400, an increase of 3561

Committee Farewells.

The committee will say farewell to two committee members this year,

Firstly Stuart, who during his time with us  has provided many suggestions and ideas which are now incorporated in the Partnerschaft’s calendar, he work tirelessly to provide excellent prizes for our raffles and new ways to run the raffles, his initial idea to have a service at the war tunnels has become an extremely important part of our calendar, whilst he is stepping down from the committee he will remain as a co-opted member.

Alan English, is extremely busy with other commitments and has been unable to attend as he wants, he will be stepping down from the committee, we thank him for all his input.

This concludes the Chariman’s report.