Kilcullen to gain information from other twinnings
The Saturday morning meeting will be held at the HQ of Kildare County Council in Naas on 2 March, to which all 11 twinning groups in the county will be invited.
Kilcullen is in the process of twinning with Saint-Contest, near the city of Caen in Normandy, France.
Eleven towns in Kildare have twinning arrangements with a total of 15 overseas communities, the inaugural public meeting of the Kilcullen group heard earlier this week. Naas is a 'serial twinner', with five connections, including Omaha in the US.
"It will be an opportunity to share information," Anne-Marie Conneely of KCC's Community Department told the meeting. "You can find out from established groups what they have done in the past, and what has worked for them."
Earlier she had outlined the Council's twinning policy, which has been in development over the past six months. A Twinning Liaison Committee has been established within the Council which will have an oversight on what is happening across the county.
The Liaison Committee will also help twinning groups with grant funding applications, and provide support for developing twinning activities from economic, cultural and tourism aspects.
"We would like twinning groups to look broadly at how counterpart communities operate," Ms Conneely said, "especially on initiatives by their own local authorities which we might be able to replicate back here." She encouraged the Kilcullen group, as a voluntary committee, to look 'outside what you may have been focusing on' for ideas that maybe another local organisation can support.
The meeting was given an outline of how the Kilcullen twinning process should go, now that the project has been approved by the Council and is being supported by the authority.
An allocation of €4,000 has already been agreed by the councillors of the Naas MD for the Kilcullen group, and Ms Conneely noted that other funding can be available to support twinning activities, including EU grants.
The Kilcullen group's next task is to prepare a Twinning Profile, providing among other things details of the town's history, economy, cultural and sports activities. A twinning ceremony with Saint-Contest will also be organised, at which both towns will sign a Twinning Charter.
A delegation from Saint-Contest will visit Kilcullen for the St Patrick's weekend, reciprocating an exploratory visit by Kilcullen people last September.
Photographs use Policy — Privacy Policy
