As Bath recovers from the exhilaration of its own Festival, Brunswick is currently celebrating three days of street music with the participation of 42 artists from 20 different countries.  This is accompanied by a wide range of street food – and entry to all events is free! At the end of June Brunswick will also be celebrating the “Festival Theaterformen” once again with a variety of performances and participants from 12 countries. In past years, musical groups from Bath have travelled to Brunswick for the “Kulturnacht”, and it would be great to see some of their German counterparts joining us for the Bath Festival in the future. Meanwhile in Bath, BBTA will hold its next committee meeting on Friday, 10th June, at 7.15.  We are still meeting on Zoom, and anyone interest in attending can contact our secretary at bbta18@hotmail.com and find out more about our plans to meet up with other twinning organisations in...

There is much cause for celebration in our twin city:   Eintracht Braunschweig will play in the 2nd Bundesliga again!  Meanwhile in Bath, life has been relatively quiet in the past week with many of our activities being resumed online.  Two events to look forward to are Michael Joseph’s talk (organised by Bath German Society) on his family research which reflects the troubled history of central Europe in the 20th and 21st centuries, a talk by Helga Eckart of the CSA on Juli Zeh’s “Corpus Delicti”.  These are on 11th and 12th May respectively and further information is available from the usual links. The BBTA committee continues to plan for further visits by our twinning friends later this year, and these will provide a welcome opportunity to socialise in person. We are still also hoping that German native speakers resident in Bath would be willing to describe their impressions of their adopted city for the Braunschweig twinning website.  If you are interested in this, please contact our secretary for further...

On a rather chilly April 21st, a group of 19 visitors from Brunswick consisting of arts and sports enthusiasts met in the Parade Gardens for the re-dedication of the Brunswick Garden.  In true British fashion, we had enjoyed balmy temperatures the previous day when our visitors were able to stroll round Bath, take in the tourist attractions, explore the restaurants and listen to the brilliant street artists.  The Mayor of Bath, Cllr June Player, hosted this event for us, as well as a formal reception in the Guildhall.  Our thanks go especially to Paul and Ulla for organising the group visit, and for the many gifts they brought, and it was a great pleasure to meet our twins. The group will return to Brunswick on Sunday, so they missed the opportunity to join in the online discussion with members of the DEG on 28th April.  The topics were a book case project, similar to free libraries in phone boxes, and the reporting of the war in Ukraine.  As always, it was interesting to hear about differing experiences and perspectives;   the book group hopes to meet again on 23rd  June.  The previous week had also seen a Celebration of Twinning, organised by Bath German Society at BRLSI, when members of Bath’s Twinning and Friendship Associations talked about their twin cities, and current projects.  This event was recorded and will be available later on the BRLSI YouTube channel. A new edition of the Newsletter will be published shortly.  Members are also welcome to join our next online committee meeting on 6th May;  details are available from our...

Following our recent committee meetings, some of us met a representative of the Bath Parks Department to consider the replanting of the Braunschweig Garden in the Parade Gardens.  This was the opportunity for a gentle stroll through this popular park in the centre of Bath, and we hope that many people will take advantage of this in the coming months.  As the pandemic restrictions are being eased it is possible that we may venture even further afield! In the meantime, we have Jeremy Key-Pugh’s talk on Beethoven to look forward to on 17th March.  This has been organised by the Bath German Society and will take place at the BRLSI.  Our Secretary and Treasurer have been contacting members about the change of bank account as subscriptions will be due on 1st April.  We hope to welcome potential new members as well.  The chair of BBTA has also successfully distributed the twinning calendars, designed by the pupils of King Edward’s School and the Ricarda-Huch-Schule, to members and friends.  We will be meeting members of the DEG online on 3rd March to discuss “A Gentleman in Moscow”, which offers a unique perspective on life in Russia in the middle of the twentieth century. Our next committee meeting will be held on...

On 4th February our Vice Chair, Jeremy Key-Pugh, conducted a group of BBTA members and friends around the latest developments in the Abbey Footprint Project.  In an informative and lively manner he explained how the hot spring waters will now be used to heat the Abbey – and much more!  This amazing project is a definite “must” on a visit to Bath, and we recommend it to all our visitors from Brunswick. The next committee meeting will take place – on Zoom – on 18th February at 19.15, and members are warmly invited to join us.