Reading-Düsseldorf Association - Strategy for Development

Strategy for Development

This Strategy for Development was approved at the Annual General Meeting of the Association on 27 November 2002.

Core Purpose

The Association exists in order to promote international peace, goodwill and friendship between the peoples of Reading and Düsseldorf.

Key Principles

We are non-partisan and non-commercial.
We have a particular concern for helping young people to experience positive contacts with Düsseldorf.
We seek to make effective use of voluntary involvement.
We value the support of Reading Borough Council, and seek mutual effort in support of the aims we share with the Council.
We will help to foster Reading’s other international links.

Key Activities

We enable Reading people to communicate with, meet, visit, and develop friendship with people in Düsseldorf.
We encourage and help organisations of all sorts (voluntary, public and business) to establish links with corresponding organisations in Düsseldorf.
We collect and publicise information about Düsseldorf and the links between Reading and Düsseldorf.
We promote events that draw attention to the friendship, and foster a sense of common purpose among people who value our relationship.
We enable people and organisations to derive benefits of all kinds from our friendship with Düsseldorf.

Main lines of development

We will build on our strengths, particularly our long history and experience; our wide range of contacts; the way we have developed from personal commitment and voluntary activity; and our close relationship with Reading Borough Council.
We will relate our aims to the broader needs and wishes of the community in Reading, particularly as identified by the Council, and will initiate activities that are connected to these aims.
We will encourage growth of an active membership that is representative of the whole community.
We will seek to develop opportunities for work experience in Düsseldorf for young people from Reading, while being realistic about potential problems.
We will aim to make ourselves and our activities more widely known, for example through our website, and by regular contacts with hotels, cultural bodies, sporting bodies and local businesses.
We will gather information about the links that have existed in the past, are now current, or may be developed in the future.
We will identify funding opportunities.
We will seek joint projects with other appropriate bodies.

12 March 2010