happy couple in cash. This they converted from deutschmarks to sterling and donated to Cornwall Wildlife Trust for the maintenance of one of our reserves.

Knowing that Rudiger had proposed to Heike at Kemyel Crease/ on the cliffs near Lamorna/ we could do no other than to put this considerable sum of money to the upkeep of this/ one of our oldest reserves, and one of the most difficult to maintain.

Heike specialises in environmental work not only through the day but in her spare time. She has just completed a two year part-time course in Further Education in Environmental Education, and organises children's groups of the Oldenburg NABU on weekend and holiday activities. In 1999 she volunteered to spend three weeks working at Allet with Mark Nicholson, working on Fox Club and school projects.

Rudiger was involved in wildlife conservation as a teenager and in the '80s he found himself working in Brussels. There he was the coauthor of an important publication exposing subsidy fraud in the environmental sphere. However, he turned his back on Brussels bureaucracy and returned to the ancient Duchy of Oldenburg where

he soon found himself as the head of the Oldenburg office of NABU.

His colleagues talk about the constant tornado of ideas which flow from him, never more so than when he embraced the concept of 'twinning' with CWT. Following this pleasurable event in 1999 we like many in NABU throughout Germany, have been bombarded with his ideas.

One of these was to set up an organisation called 'Freunde Cornwalls - Kerensa Kernow' (Friends of Cornwall). Through this body he has become a living/ walking/ talking Tourist Information Bureau for Cornwall in Germany. His office regularly receives thousands of brochures* from Cornwall. These he packs into five pound parcels which are mailed all over the country. From the responses to this information, groups of Germans are brought by coach the 1/000 miles to Penzance for an 8-day holiday. An average of five groups per year for the past five years have injected a minimum figure of £150/000 per year directly into the Cornish economy.

Apart from this valuable input for B&B/ food, presents (and maybe an occasional beer), every visitor makes a cash contribution to CWT funds. Friends indeed! Thank you

Rudiger. Thank you Heike. Thank you to our many friends in Lower Saxony.

What can we do to show our appreciation? It is so difficult to match their generosity of spirit. A number of personal visits (transporting brochures and giving talks to local audiences), and now this public acknowledgement to them will be followed next spring with a coach trip to Lower Saxony for a group of 35 people. This will be arranged by the Trust, so if you are interested please call Tricia at Allet who will send you details as soon as they become available.

And in case you were wondering what they did with all the items they purchased, they were for resale to NABU members.

Howard Curnow
Chairman

Cornwall Wildlife Trust

*And a small request to you, our members. The transport of this huge quantity of brochures covering all aspects of Cornwall as a holiday venue is done either voluntarily or at NABU's expense. If you are a (frequent?) visitor to Northern Germany and could carry a few packs of brochures it would help our friends, help CWT and help Cornwall.