How it all began
Weilerswist is a German town and wider municipality in North Rhine-Westphalia and is located not far from the cities of Cologne and Bonn. The municipality has over 17,500 inhabitants.
Carqueiranne is a commune - a small administrative region - with roughly 10,000 inhabitants. It lies on France's Mediterranean coast between Toulon and Hyères in the Var departement, some 700 miles from Weilerswist.
The twinning between Weilerswist and Carqueiranne was formally established when the towns' representatives signed the twinning agreement in Weilerswist on 18th April 1978 and in Carqueiranne on 27th May the same year.
The Weilerswist town council unanimously agreed that the townspeople themselves should be allowed to breathe life into the political aims of the twinning. A resolution was therefore passed by the municipal council to found an association that would perform and coordinate the duties of the twinning.
The purpose of the association would be to foster and promote friendship and social, cultural, sporting, and scholastic links between Weilerswist and Carqueiranne.
The local people were invited to attend the founding of this association at the Weilerswist secondary school hall on 30th January 1979. The founding members present decided to name the new association Partnerschaftsgesellschaft Weilerswist e.V. and passed its first articles of association.
Walter Warnecke was voted in as the association's first chairperson and served from 1979 to 1982. The following chairpersons over the years have been Manfred Gerhold, Edgar Franzmann, Fritz Morche, Henner Kayser, and Christa Kayser… Read more