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| Alencon visit 2016 |
Back in 1982 bridge players were suddenly invited to participate in the annual Basingstoke/Alencon twinning Festival of Sport. Two Alencon players arrived for the weekend to stay with Chris & Helen Kinloch. Since then firm friendships have been made.
Although the other twinning visits have fallen away, the exchange between the Bridge clubs has grown and every year, each club has hosted the Bridge match along with social visits.
This year it was our turn to host and it was a great success as usual.
Our French friends arrived on Saturday morning. We had seven and a half tables for the bridge competition in the afternoon where the scores of the top two English pairs were compared against the top two French pairs. Thanks to John Glasscock & Martin Church and Ivan Helmer & Geoffrey Sergeant, Basingstoke managed to recover the Raymond Guerin trophy which we lost to Alencon last year. The three non bridge playing ladies spent a pleasant sunny afternoon with Barbara Glasscock visiting the bluebell woodland garden at Brick Kiln Cottage near Alton and fitting in some shopping in Basingstoke. After the bridge there was a lovely buffet dinner for 32 at the club. Fortunately the weather was good all weekend and everyone enjoyed the visit to the Hawk Conservancy on Sunday afternoon, followed by dinner at Helen's house in Andover.
The visitors left on Monday morning in time to tour some of the New Forest before taking the afternoon ferry back to Caen. We look forward to seeing them all next year in Alencon. Anyone interested in going would be most welcome and guaranteed a great weekend. The hosts this year were Sula Turpin, David Walton & Ann James, John & Barbara Glasscock, Liz & Graham Bragg and Chris & Helen Kinloch. Speak to any of them to find out more. (The bridge is not important!)
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