Last month we featured Community Lincs — an organisation trying to support smaller towns and villages within the county. They encourage them to make the most of their identity, and do this in the hope that they come to realise that their community is something incredible and unique.

Having a strong sense of community within an area is also a huge part of being one half of a twin town. There are many Lincolnshire towns and villages twinned with places around the world, especially within Europe.

Twinning has recently been the subject of great discussion in the national news due to many towns scrapping their twinning arrangements with their continental counterparts. Many towns in Lincolnshire, too, are struggling to keep ties with their twins in Europe, mainly due to funding.

North Lincolnshire Mayor Keith Vickers understands this, and is trying his best to secure twinning in the North of the county. Keith recently took a trip to Clamart to strengthen ties with our foreign counterparts.

Within Europe, town twinning is supported by the European Union, and a support scheme was established in 1989. In 2003 an annual budget of about 12 million Euros was allocated to around 1,300 projects. The Council of European Municipalities and Regions also works closely with the Commission to promote modern, high quality twinning initiatives and exchanges that involve all sections of the community.

“A twinning is the coming together of two communities developing closer ties of friendship.” said Jean Bareth.

Jean Bareth was one of the founders of the Council of European Municipalities and Regions. He identified the primary values twinning represents, including friendship, co-operation and mutual awareness.

Twinning is the most visible form of European co-operation. It covers a wide range of topics from art and culture, young people, citizenship, sustainable development, local public services, local economic development and social inclusion.

Towns can be twinned for many reasons, including similar size, population, industry, and even just because they offer something unique to the other town. Usually alternate visits to each twin town are organised each year by the mayoralty.

With twinning issues being raised in Lincolnshire, an official town twinning visit to France was last month undertaken by the Mayor and Mayoress of North Lincolnshire to strengthen ties, and to set out the future for their twin town agreement.

North Lincolnshire Council believes the attendance of the Mayor and Mayoress at the anniversary event will strengthen historic twinning links.

“The North Lincolnshire Council recently inherited three twin towns, in Poland, Germany and France.” said Mayor Keith
Vickers.

The Mayor and Mayoress visited Le Senateur-Maire de Clamart for celebrations being held to mark the 15th anniversary of twinning with North Lincolnshire. It was also the occasion of the 35th anniversary of twinning with Scunthorpe.

“Our area has been officially twinned with Clamart since 1996, following local government reorganisation.” says Keith.
“We have now set up a meeting to explore possible ways forward and links for the future of this twinning.”

Clamart is especially interested in organising school exchanges with a musical background... and over the next few pages we’ll see a few more of Lincolnshire’s European contemporaries.

For more information visit www.northlincs.gov.uk.