SCSO Newsletter
August 2001

The Oak Ridge visit to Naka was a great success as usual. See our web site for details.

The Naka delegation will visit Oak Ridge from August 16-23. All SCSO members are invited to attend the:

o Welcome reception - Oak Ridge Chamber of Commerce, 5 PM, Friday, August 17.

o Farewell party at Briarcliff Community Club on Tuesday, August 21, 6-9 PM

· Bring a covered dish (salad, side dish, main dish or dessert) to share that will serve 12 people with serving utensils.

· SCSO will provide grilled bratwurst and hot dogs with all the trimmings.

· The Oak Ridge School Administration will provide beverages, paper ware and eating utensils.

· We need SCSO volunteers to help decorate the pavilion at Briarcliff Community Club for the event. Call Ken Luckmann (483-3958) if you can help!

Our next meeting will be Thursday, September 13th, 6:45 PM at the Oak Ridge Library meeting room. A brief business meeting and general update will start the meeting. We will feature Naka machi activities and hope to have participants from the 2001 Naka machi Middle School Exchange present their impressions of the 2001 program.

The tapestry is going well thanks to the efforts of Marti Fleischer and her team of dedicated weavers! Take a look at the web site for a great up-date by Marianne Vigander and at the real thing when you come to the meeting on September 13^th. Once completed (watch for information about the "cutting off" ceremony sometime in October) and exhibited in Oak Ridge, we plan on sending it to Naka for presentation celebrating our 10 years as sister cities.

SCSO has funds for a second tapestry for a similar tribute to Obninsk. The 10^th anniversary with Obninsk is in 2002. We will need volunteers to guide this project. Marti Fleischer can help but not to the extent she has done with the Naka tapestry. We need at least one experienced weaver to oversee the weaving and others to help with supplies, scheduling and weaving. If we don’t get the volunteers this project will not happen. Please consider volunteering.

If you would like to assist in any way with this second weaving project, please call Ken Luckmann (483-3958).

• Mayor Igor Mironov and a city administration team visited Oak Ridge in July to establish relations with our city government. The visit went very well and we look forward to working with Mayor Mironov and his administration for the next four years to continue to grow our sister city partnership. See our web site for a photo journal of the visit and the Oak Ridger article in the August 8^th edition for details.
  
• We have applied for a Eurasia Foundation grant to link the city "Leadership" programs in Oak Ridge and Obninsk. We hope to hear regarding this project soon.
  
• Jerry Kuhaida is planning a visit to Obninsk as part of the Department of Energy's Nuclear City Initiative (NCI) program in Oak Ridge. This visit will focus on development of industrial parks in former nuclear cities with in conjunction with a project with Zheleznegorsk. Watch for details on our web site.

Oak Ridge won the "Best Overall Program" award (for cities under 50,000) from Sister Cities International for our programs in 2000. A delegation of Oak Ridgers went to the awards luncheon in Atlanta and city councilman (and former Mayor) Jerry Kuhaida accepted the award on behalf o SCSO and the City of Oak Ridge. See our web site for details.

Ken Luckmann also served on a panel at the "Award Winning Programs" workshop at the SCI Annual Meeting and presented information about our programs.

Officers for SCSO will be elected at the November annual meeting. We need volunteers for president, secretary, treasurer, Obninsk chairman and Naka chairman. SCSO needs "new blood" in these leadership positions. If you would like to be an SCSO officer, please call Linda Brown (482-4534). SCSO members step forward and volunteer!

and the September 13^th Quarterly Meeting!