Welcome to the UK Town Twinning Portal
Wishing you all a very Happy New Years Twinning Activities 2010
www.towntwinning.org.uk
A portal to the world of Twinning, open to all UK "Twinners".
This is the site for everyone interested in Town Twinning activities within the United Kingdom. The place to find out about your local twinning groups, to discover how to contact your local association and who they are twinned with.
For current and potential twinning groups this is the place to discover how to go about setting up a twinning link, and where to go to find a potential twinning partner, to check current information concerning twinning, travel information, and useful links..
This site also includes an article section which contains factual and “how to” articles, feature articles, and amusing stories, a news section about the activities of British groups and a recipe section for you to submit your favourite international receipes..
Other features are planned for introduction as the site grows. In other words, it is intended that this will develop into a “one stop” centre for all twinning matters.
The Forums are the home to several discussion points, such as "Is twinning still relevant now?", "How do we appeal to new and especially younger members?", "Do we get sufficient support from our councils/local community?" "Public liability insurance",these are just a few items that have been raised and for which we would appreciate your views, but the forums/discussion boards are open for YOU to raise ANY twinning related subject you wish...........please feel free to raise your question or to express your views.
We have recently opened the "Calendar" feature within the forums which allows you to publicise your activites, whether it be a Twinning Visit or a Fund Raising or Social Function, this feature is open to all Forum Members to post but is readable by anyone, why not use it to attract new support or membership.
If we do not have the information you are looking for, please let us know and we will endeavour to help. You can contact us by post, telephone, email, or by a message in the forums.
Calling all Maltese
We have recently received the following from the Bridgwater/Marsa Twinning Association.
Dear Sir/Madam
Kazin Malta are a newly formed group affiliated with the Bridgwater/Marsa twinning association.
We are looking for Maltese people living in the south west of Englnd and south Wales, who would like to get involved with us to promote and share the culture of Malta here.
If there are Maltese people in your area who would like to become involved we would love to hear from them. We can be contacted via our website Bridgewater/Marsa Twinning Associationk or by emailing me at italyandmore@yahoo.co.uk
We look forward to hearing from anyone no matter what generation Maltese they are.
Regards
Steve Gill (Chair)
Anyone interested please contact Steve Gill or the Bridgewater/Marsa Twinning Association direct.
Check out our forums for towns which are looking for a British link, we currently have requests from places as diverse as France, Spain, Turkey, Malawi and Swaziland.
The link to the appropriate section of the forums is here
Today, we have 180 groups listed,
Representing 318 seperate Twinning Groups,
who between them represent 438 Individual Twinning links
around the world.
Latest News
We are now on "twitter", yet another way for us to communicate with each other, check out tweets on the index page. If you are a "tweeter" just address your tweet to @towntwinner.
Please help
UPDATE- The following request has now become even more urgent due to the recent news regarding the new powers being given to the Independent Safeguarding Authority in which twinning groups are likely to fall within their prescribed categories and our activities could possibly be severly curtailed. Please look at the discussions in the forum. All member groups will shortly be receiving an email on the subject suggesting ways in which we could try to get this postponed until it has been rationally thought out following proper consultation and discussion.
We emphasize that we are 100% in favour of child protection but these new rules throw commonsense out of the window and far from helping children is likely to have adverse effects on volunteer groups such as ours.
A major problem facing nearly all Twinning Groups is the concern regarding child safety on youth exchanges. There are very strict rules in this country regarding the vetting of any person whose work involves contact with children who normally have to be CRB checked before they can continue in the position, this has also been expanded from the original concept to include volunteers, ie. leaders of youth groups, scouts, sports gorups to name but a couple.
There is a great deal of confusion and misconception regarding this matter and in order to clarify the issue, one of our member groups has spoken with their local Member of Parliament who has said he would be willing to speak in parliament under a 10 minute amendment rule, however, we need your thoughts and comments before we instruct him as to what exactly he needs to say.
Please check the forum here and then either add your comments within that thread or contact us directly at towntwinning@gmail.com
As there are very many exchange visits currently being planned for this summer we would like to get this clarified as soon as possible, therefore a prompt response would be welcomed. Thank you for your attention.
Latest, We understand that due to so many complaints from different sources that the government is now reviewing the regulations. We will try to keep you updated when we have further information.
Sponsorship
There are several opportunities for you to sponsor this site. Sponsorship helps us to provide this service free of charge to twinning groups around the country, so please support our sponsors whenever you can. Thank you!