Welcome to the Lingfield and District Twinning Association Website.

Lingfield has been twinned with Plaisance du Touch, in the south of France near Toulouse, since the 1970’s.

In this, the 30th year of twinning with Plaisance du Touch, we are looking forward to welcoming visitors from our twin town for the Lingfield Marathon weekend at the beginning of May 2009. We have organised a variety of activities for them during the weekend.  Last year on our visit to Plaisance, Lingfield School sent drawings which were displayed as part of an exhibition on water, and in order to keep the contact alive, the School has kindly invited our visitors for a school assembly and a tour of the school.  Later in the day there will be a visit to Lingfield Races, which will be great fun for everyone, especially in a foreign language! 

We will be visiting Chartwell, as we know our French visitors are always eager to learn some of our history.  After spending the day discovering the home of Sir Winston Churchill they can relax listening to a concert given by the Lingfield Silver Band and some musicians from Plaisance.  This will be followed by a meal to celebrate the 30th anniversary of twinning between our two communities, during which there is an exchange of presents and a few speeches.  This year, as an exception, there will be a rousing chorus of “Happy Birthday” – to us!  

There will be a small team from Plaisance entering the Marathon on the Sunday and the rest of the visitors and host families will be there to cheer them on.  Let’s hope they have done enough training to complete the course!

We will finish the organised part of the weekend with a Barn Dance. This will test our language abilities!  Who knows the French for “dosido“? 

During the weekend there will also be time for host families to entertain their visitors and take them to other places of their choice, either locally for further afield.  There are plenty of beautiful places in the locality for people to visit, especially Lingfield itself.  Quite often, visitors suddenly realise they haven’t actually seen the village with whom they are twinned, so we always encourage host families to show their visitors around.

We know for certain that many friendships will be made during this visit and we will be sad to see our visitors depart.  However, we look on a visit as having been successful when we are told by host families that they will be eager to return to Plaisance for our next visit there so that they can renew the acquaintances that were made this time – the object of twinning has been achieved!

We would like to thank the following for their financial support towards this visit:

David Thomas
Martin Cundey
Dormansland Parish Council
Lingfield Parish Council

 

Best wishes to you all.

Janet King

Chairman