Following some early work by Benoit Daufresne, who brought the two clubs together. Unicorn twinned with CAL on the 27th October 1990, when the the Presidents of the two clubs, Eileen Rice (Unicorn) and Didier Rebours (CAL) signed the twinning charter.
The charter was also signed by Yvette Roudy, M.P. and Mayor of Lisieux and Bruce Robinson, President of the Twinning Committee.
In the first year the clubs both traveled to each others towns. But in the subsequent years, we have visited just once over the weekend around the beginning of May, the town alternating each year.
In
the first couple of years the badminton was played over two days. The first day
was a friendly and on the second, the tournament was played. In more recent
years, as friendships have grown, the badminton has all taken place on one day,
with both friendly and tournament matches being played. The other day is now
taken up visiting friends and exploring the local area around the towns with our
friends from overseas.
Very firm friendships have built up between the clubs and the members. So much so that the badminton is almost becoming secondary, to just being with our friends over the English Channel.
In
2000 we celebrated our 10th anniversary visit, which was full of memorable
events during a visit by Unicorn to Lisieux. The town of Lisieux and CAL presented their English
visitors with a silver medal. These visits repeat every year and remain very
successful. This year's visit was the 14th.
See the pictures of our 2004 twinning visit here, which took place over the May Day holiday weekend.
A sincere thank you to all our French friends who made us all so welcome. See you in Taunton in 2007.