Schiedam in Europe

Jan, former city official, Schiedam, the Netherlands

Those cities had a conference with each other every year. That meant that all those mayors and everything around them, civil servants involved, they then went to a certain city, they had a certain subject there, and a conference was held about that. Often with a theme. Well, that had been going on for years, but yes, Schiedam was slowly involved and then, of course, Schiedam was asked: “Wouldn’t you also like to organize the conference in Schiedam”? That was in 1980! And then it actually started to bloom because then Schiedam really had to organise a conference. I was closely involved in that. That was actually one of the first things that I became closely involved with. We really got a period when I thought now we really can to do something about it. That was actually the impetus for more further cooperation. Esslingen had a whole philosophy behind it. You also tried to transfer that to people who participated in exchanges at some point. In the first instance those people are concerned with: isn’t it nice, we’re going to play a football tournament in Slovenia or we’re going to give a singing performance in Esslingen. If they are working with each other then, those choirs, then you will notice that they come into contact with each other and so on.