26.August 2007 Northrhine-Westphalia Day in PB

What a wonderful party:Paderborn hosted the very first NRW Day - from now on each year hereafter one city in our State gets to host this special 2 days event.This year Paderborn was the lucky city to be selected to start this new "tradition".The organizers expected between 400.000 and 500.000 thousand visitors....I was there, I was that hero because I volunteered to participate at our DAFK booth and it was indeed an endless stream of folks that flooded by our table.

Some had heard about our exchange programs and inquired about how to register their teenager for the 2008 tour,others took an interest in our brochures and the very daring ones stepped up closer to read the blogs of our present three students which I had printed out and pinned to the board. ( see attached photo showing the blogs with Dr. Allendorf ).

During these two days we rotated our booth duties among these motivated members:Mrs. Brunhilde Konersmann;Willi Bökamp;Heiner Sprengkamp;Bernd Broer - our President; Dr. Otmar Allendorf and myself....this way time went by quickly and since nobody was allowed to smoke inside the Historic City Hall where we had been permitted to set up - I was able to provide information throughout my time allotted slot without ever sounding coarse. I will read the Monday papers and see if I can scan a photo that describes best the festive spirit and the perfect weather.

Paderborn may have many problems at hand - but this event was certainly a huge and welcome success - and I am a bit proud that we at DAFK did our small share.