French Visitors From Normandy
In February, Fr. Tom invited some young people from Ste-Mere-Eglise in Normandy to come to Salisbury in an enjoyable retreat to see some of the sights of southern England.
To welcome them to Salisbury, he and Rob Windsor decided to get together some of Salisbury's own young people for mass in the evening followed by time to get to know each other and a meal in St. Elizabeth's Hall. The mass was said by Fr Tom to all that was gathered, which included two young members from Trowbridge, before everyone made their way to St Elizabeth's hall.
At St Elizabeth's Hall the members of each party started to get to know each other. This was done through a series of organisation games in which the young people had to get themselves into order of age, birthday and several other categories. After this, the groups were split into pairs. In this time they had to get to know each other before feeding back to the group about that person. During the feedback session, much was learnt of the different people and once it had come to a close it was time for the meal, which was kindly prepared by Fr Tom.
During the meal, there was much more socialising between the two groups as the language barrier seemed to disappear amongst a lot of laughter and fun! It was clear that our french wasn't great as many English-French Dictionaries appeared under the tables.
However, this didn't stop everyone having a very enjoyable night and after the meal more games were played with friends that had been formed that night. It was so enjoyable, that the French group invited us to visit the. This trip will be taking place in July and we hope there will be many takers for it!