Didcot–Meylan Twinning Association

Sports Event in Meylan

November 2000

I attended the sports event for young people as a representative of Didcot. I thoroughly enjoyed the event and was impressed by the professionalism of the organisation and the way in which the people of Meylan welcomed everybody who attended.

The 4 day event which was fun packed from start to finish brought together around 100 young people (and 'young at heart' adults) from the Town's of Didcot, Planegg, Gonzales and of course Meylan. Activities that took place were football, volleyball, swimming, badminton and orienteering as well as demonstrations in gymnastics, jazz dancing and martial arts.

The young people were split into groups ensuring that there was a mix of nationalities in each group. This made for some interesting conversations but more importantly many new friendships were made over the course of the event. Each group was assigned a colour and issued with a T-Shirt to match. Each team was also assigned with an adult who would be responsible for the group throughout the event. I was placed in charge of the 'Vanilla' team, made up of 2 French, 4 Germans and an American.

The idea of having mixed nationalities in each group was extremely successful, although it did rather test my ability to control an excited group of teenagers who spoke 3 different languages! Although the emphasis was on fun, each of the sports was undertaken in a competition format, so imagine my joy when the Vanilla team stormed to victory in the first event, the football competition! However, the phrase “peaked too early” soon became apparent for when it came to the afternoon event (volleyball) my team seemed a little tired to say the least. The kids were obviously tired from their morning exertions; my only excuse was too much wine at lunchtime! The lunches were an event in their own right, everybody met in the college hall and extremely nice packed lunches were provided for all. For the adults, copious amounts of wine were supplied and as a result afternoons always seemed to be a little less hectic than the mornings.

On the evening of the 1st day there was a 'Bring & Share' supper followed by a disco till the early hours of the morning. All of the host families were invited and it was a thoroughly enjoyable evening.

The second day saw all of the teams enter the pool for a swimming competition followed by orienteering around Meylan in the afternoon. The purpose of the orienteering was to ensure that everybody got to see the town of Meylan. It certainly served this purpose, as each team must have walked about 10 miles, I now know Meylan better than Didcot!

In the evening the young people were free to either spend time with their host families or to practice various sports in the college gym. Meanwhile the adults headed off to Grenoble for a 5-course meal. It was a wonderful evening and once again there was more than enough wine to enjoy.

The next morning was set aside for shopping in Grenoble, however, winter had decided to descend upon the region, and so it was off to an indoor shopping mall instead. In true tourist style, all of the young people headed straight for McDonalds, I wasn't far behind them.

In the afternoon it was back to the sports hall for a Badminton competition followed by a jazz dance demonstration. Unfortunately, due to work commitments I had to head off to the airport mid afternoon and therefore missed out on the closing ceremony held in the Town Hall that evening.

I can safely say that I thoroughly enjoyed myself, as too did all others taking part, I made many friends and am extremely glad that I had the opportunity to attend. It is largely understood that Didcot will be staging a similar event in 2001, I wish everybody involved every success and hope that it will be as enjoyable for those taking part as the Meylan event was.

Les Newell, Didcot Town Council