A talk to the Rotary Club of Kirkcaldy by Robert Main, Chair of the Kirkcaldy Ingolstadt Association

1. Rotary Club Of Kirkcaldy

2. “But, other than providing a destination for
councillors in need of a holiday, what is the
point of twin towns and have they had their
day?”
Peter Davies, Mayor of Doncaster (2011)

4. • Earliest form 1836 – Paderborn Germany and Le Mans France
• Starting in 1905 Keighly West Yorkshire “sister cities
arrangements Suresnes & Puteaux France
• First recorded modern twinning agreement between Keighly
and Poix-du-Nord, France in 1920 after World War 1
• Twinning started soon after 1945
• Mostly countries divided by war
• Promoted by Council of European Municipalities in 1951
• 1950’s huge increase in the number an range of twinnings

5. Nowadays, twinning is about:
•understanding cultural differences
•involving everyone in the community – young and old
•coming together to share experience and expertise at
educational, social, cultural and business levels
•establishing a dialogue to understand people and learn
from them
•encouraging co-operation and international
development
•giving people an opportunity to promote their own
region.
•No prescriptive blueprint

6. Scale:-
•No retained list but:-
•160 countries with twinning links worldwide
•43 countries within Europe
•40,000 twinning links across Europe
•More than 2,000 in the UK alone.
•Since forming the very first in 1944, Coventry has gone on to collect 25
more, giving it more than any other city.

9. Rank Overseas country British twins – top 10
1. France 1080
2. Germany 500
3. USA 143
4. Poland 78
5. Italy 56
6. Netherlands 52
7. China 42
8. Russia 40
9. Belgium 35
10.Czech Republic 31

10. Rank British locality Twinning links – top 10 localities
1 Coventry 26
2 Sherborne 21
3 Wirral 18
4 Desborough 15
5=Newcastle Upon Tyne 14
5= Whitstable 14
7 Edinburgh 13
8 East Staffordshire 12
9 Birmingham 10
10= Barnet 9
10= County Durham 9
10= Manchester 9
10= Milton Keynes 9
10= Portsmouth 9
10= Wakefield 9
10= Wolverhampton 9

11. Coventry was the world's first twin city
when it formed a twinning relationship with
the Russian city of Stalingrad (now
Volgograd) during World War II. The
relationship developed through ordinary
people in Coventry who wanted to show
their support for the Soviet Red Army
during the Battle of Stalingrad.[5]
The city is
now also twinned with Dresden, Lidice and
25 other cities around the world

12. Overseas countries
•The 2525 links are spread across 90 overseas countries.
•Most links established in the 1950s and 60s were with localities in France and
Germany.
•In the1970s, France and Germany were joined by the USA.
•In the 1980s, these three countries were joined by China, Italy, and Nicaragua.
•In the 1990s, these three countries (France, Germany and the USA) were joined
by Italy, Spain, the Czech Republic, and Poland.
•Since 2000, most new links have been with localities in France, the USA and
Poland.

13. Town Twinning - Douzelage International
The Douzelage movement was the brainchild of the Granville and
Sherborne Twinning Associations in 1989. Delegates of the twelve
founder members, one for each European Community member state,
met in 1991 in Granville to sign the charter formally bringing Douzelage
into existence.
The aims of the Douzelage are to promote and foster the spirit of Europe
and to establish among others educational, economic, tourist, sporting
and cultural links between the towns for the mutual benefit of the
inhabitants thereof.
The name is a combination of douze for twelve and jumelage for
twinning, and although the number of member states and the number of
our member towns has grown in the meantime, as the EU is sticking to
its twelve stars, so we are sticking to our douze.

14. The original 12 founder members were:
Altea, Spain Bad Kötzting, Germany Bellagio, Italy
•
Bundoran, Ireland Granville, France Holstebro, Denmark
• Houffalize, Belgium Meerssen, Netherlands Niederanven, Luxembourg
Preveza, Greece Sesimbra, Portugal Sherborne, United Kingdom
Towns that joined later are:
Karkkila, Finland - 1997 Oxelösund, Sweden - 1998
Judenburg, Austria - 1999
In a first step of further expansion, 5 new towns joined the Douzelage in harmony
with the European enlargement process:
Chojna, Poland - 2004 Kőszeg, Hungary - 2004
Sigulda, Latvia - 2004 Sušice, Czech Republic - 2004
Türi, Estonia – 2004
Since 2007, seven further towns have joined the organisation:
Zvolen, Slovakia - 2007 Prienai, Lithuania - 2008
Marsaskala, Malta - 2009 Siret, Romania - 2010
Agros, Cyprus - 2011 Škofja Loka, Slovenia – 2011
Tryavna, Bulgaria - 2011

15. There are 19 twin and partner towns in Fife
Town Twinning and Fife

17. Ingolstadt and it Twin Towns
Presented in July 2012 the Flag of the
Council of Europe in recognition of their
contribution and commitment to
Town Twinning

18. Ingolstadt,
Germany
Carrara, Italy
Grasse, France
Opole, Poland
Gyor, Hungary
Moscow, Russia
Murska Sobota, Slovenia
Manisa, Turkey
Kraguyevac, Serbia
Kirkcaldy, Scotland

19. as a device, town twinning is modular. It has
been taken up and used by numerous different
interest groups, in numerous different historical
and geographical contexts, with numerous
different ends in mind.

20. town twinning is not some quaint pastime of a
bygone post-war era, but is something current,
something contemporary, something of recently
growing incidence – and probably, therefore, of
recently growing importance as well.

21. "Dull, in Perthshire, and Boring, Oregon forges an unlikely link when Elizabeth Leighton,
who lives in Aberfeldy, near the Scottish village, was on a cycling holiday in the US. She
passed through Boring, and immediately phoned her friend, Emma Burtles, a resident of
Dull, with an idea to link the two communities together."