Mayor Unmasked
Posted on Thursday 6 July 2006
The Mayor and Mayoress of Rushmoor were guests of honour at a Mask Extravaganza of comic theatre hel
The Mayor and Mayoress of Rushmoor were guests of honour at a Mask Extravaganza of comic theatre held at Farnborough Sixth Form College on Thursday 6 July. The production was performed by students from the College and by visiting students from Liceum Ogolnoksztalcace in Sulechow, Poland.
The Polish students were visiting Farnborough Sixth Form College as part of the developing link between the two colleges established with the aid and support of the Rushmoor Town Twinning Committee. Both groups of students were introduced to the skills of masked mime theatre by college drama tutors Matt Sheppard and Rebecca Lewis who took the English students to Sulechow in February.
Mr Sheppard said, "The wonderful aspect of mime theatre is that it is language-free and thus both groups of students could participate equally".
Mr Bob Cobb, who was responsible for much of the early work in establishing strong links between Rushmoor and Sulechow, was also a principal guest at the performance. Mr Cobb said, "Many years ago, I encouraged students from from Farnborough to become pen-pals with young people in Sulechow. Now it is wonderful to see that tradition strengthened by students visiting each other's towns and working and performing together". Mr Cobb is an honorary citizen of Sulechow in recognition of his work with the town.
After the production, the Mayor of Rushmoor paid tribute to the relationship between the Colleges. "So often, town twinning is thought to be the preserve of a few people involved in the Council but here at the College we can see twinning taking place between the young people - these are the real fruits of building a relationship between towns".
College Principal, Dr John Guy, said, "It is a great delight to see such a wonderful and comic production emerge after so short a time of preparation. We look forward to developing even stronger links with our partners in Poland in the future"
