Presidents at al. - Looking back at 2006 and outlook for 2007

Von: Fritzemeyer, Wolfgang [Wolfgang.Fritzemeyer@BAKERNET.com]
Gesendet: Samstag, 23. Dezember 2006 20:23
Cc: president@cornell.edu; Evelyn Meierholzner; Thonemann, Hans-Guenter; Deloyce Conrad; klaus.conrad@oberalting.de
Betreff: Presidents at al. - Looking back at 2006 and Outlook for 2007

2006 draws to a close, you are swamped with cards and good wishes: I have also written a few cards already - those going abroad at least, most of the other ones still to be written now during the holiday break. (My family very much enjoys this every-year-ritual, but days have been pretty busy for me, to put it mildly!). To be yet another "swampor" and making you innocent "swampees", I nonetheless want to send you a few lines still in the old year and to address a few points to pave the way for 2007, hopefully another successful Club year.

We had a wonderful Cornell Weekend on May 26-28, 2006 in Stuttgart, with a particular emphasis on technical aspects, especially the automobile industry, with a visit to the just opened Mercedes Benz Museum and a dinner speech on "The Car Industry and the Environment", which I think was interesting also for those not involved in the car industry, or technical aspects generally. We also had a very productive Annual General Meeting; I have attached the meeting minutes for you to peruse, talking also about what we have done, and not done, and what we plan to do in the future.

In the meantime, following last year's resignation of Jeffrey S. Lehman, Dr. David J. Skorten has assumed office as Cornell University's 12th President. The inauguration festivities took place on September 7, 2006. For further details please read the Special Inauguration Issue of Cornell e-News via the following link:

If you are interested in further information about our Alma Mater you might want to have a look at the

especially regarding the launch of the University's ambitious US$ 4 billion campaign, and the

The preparations for our Cornell Weekend 2007 in Erfurt have already started. Please block in your diary the weekend May 18-20, 2007. This is again the Ascension Weekend, with the Ascension Day on May 17, 2007. This will give you the opportunity to extend your trip to Thuringia and to see also other important and interesting Thuringian sites, e.g., Weimar and Jena. For further details on Thuringia please click http://en.deutschland-navigator.de/THU/.

The Cornell Weekend will have as its main subject political aspects, a subjaect not addressed at our Cornell Weekends for some time. The dinner speech will be held by Harald Schliemann (Head of the Department of Justice of the State of Thuringia), thanks to the good connections of our co-alumnus Professor Carl Otto Lenz, who - as you will know - has been a Member of the German Parliament ("Deutscher Bundestag") for many years, has chaired the Parliament's Legal Committee and was from 1984 through 1997 Attorney General at the European Court of Justice in Luxemburg. On the other hand, those who have been present at our very first Cornell Weekend in Wiesbaden in 1992, will still recall our co-alunmus Ernst Albrecht - the former Prime Minister of the Sate of Lower Saxony - talking soon after the Wall had come down on the "Aufschwung Ost" project; it's probably a good time for a stocktake of what has been achieved since then in the German East (the new Länder) and what not, which expectations (as unrealistic as some o them might have been) have been met and which not.

David, would there be hope still be hope for us that you might have a chance joining us in Erfurt? It would really be great! You have already missed out on 15 Cornell Weekends, which have taken place annually since 1992, with the following venues: Wiesbaden (1992), Heidelberg (1993), Bonn (1994), Herrsching am Ammersee (1995), Luxemburg (1996), Hamburg (1997), Dresden (1998), Frankfurt (1999), Konstanz (2000), Rügen (2001), Berlin (2002), Wien (2003) Duisburg (2004), Schloss Elmau (2005) and Stuttgart (2006) - you have missed a lot!>

As you will see from the minutes of this year's Annual Meeting, we plan to have our Cornell Weekend 2008 together with our Swiss friends in Switzerland, date and venue still to be confirmed. (Obviously, members of other Cornell Clubs are always welcome to join us for our Cornell Weekends, and have also been invited in the past.)

For further information concerning the activities of our Club, and its Sub-Chapters, please visit our beautiful - and most of the time up-to-date - Club website http://www.alumni.cornell.edu/orgs/int/germany/. Please send your possible contributions, announcements, comments, etc. to its creator and our Webmaster, Hans-Günter Thonemann, at Hans-Guenter.Thonemann@siemens.com, please with a copy to me.

Once again: Even if you are not a member of The Cornell Club of Germany (yet), you should be informed of and stay abreast with our activities and plans; please regard this tester as an incentive to join our Club, rather than as evidence that there is no need for you to become a member on the assumption that you will receive all relevant information and invitations anyway. For convenience's sake, a membership form is attached.

although you can join us also via our website (http://www.alumni.cornell.edu/orgs/int/germany).

This is also the time to do good deeds, but also the time to find that one might still have too much money on one's bank account. As the - I think last (I am not at home right now) - sentence in Schiller's "Räuber" reads: "Dem Manne kann geholfen werden." (The man can be helped.) - just do a bank transfer to our Club's bank account (The Cornell Club of Germany e.V., account # 101 524-605, Postgiroamt Frankfurt am Main, BLZ 500 100 60). Any amount is welcome, and this is really one of these famous "win-win situations" we are supposed to always have in mind: We can do the good deeds we want to do even better, and you will soon get from our nice Treasurer Evelyn Meierholzner (Evmeierholzner@aol.com) a nice receipt which your nice Tax Office will be kind enough to gladly accept (since we have once again successfully concluded our tax audit confirming our continuing non-profit status ("Gemeinnützigkeit"). Any payments made, better: reach our account, still by December 29, 2006 (to be on the safe side, December 31 being a Sunday), will still be tax-effective for FY 2006.

Deloyce and Klaus Conrad - very successfully running this Sub-Chapter - just announced:

"We have booked the Hubertus "Stübchen" at Donisl for January 25th (anytime after 6:00 p.m. -- our "usual" term, i.e. the 3rd Thursday was already booked!) I'll be getting out word to the local crowd, but we're happy that you can already include it on your "Rundbrief." Prof. Söder has heard from the German House at Cornell and it looks like they may include Munich on their Spring study-trip, so we will no doubt build our next Stammtisch around that visit."

Please see how and in what determined fashion Deloyce and Klaus are doing "their job" (the pictures have been taken at the annual Hirschgarten outing of the Munich Sub-Chapter on July 29, 2006) - that's the spirit!

To conclude, I would like to take this opportunity to thank all of you for your participation and assistance in making our Club so successful and rewarding.

On behalf of our Club, and the Club's Board, let me wish you all a festive holiday season and every success for 2007. On a broader scale: We all hope 2007 will be, most importantly, a peaceful year (although this will be the matter mostly of yet another President).

Wolfgang Fritzemeyer
President
The Cornell Club of Germany e.V.
c/o Baker McKenzie
Theatinerstraße 23
80333 München
Tel.: +49-89-55238-154
Fax: +49-89-55238-199
email: Wolfgang.Fritzemeyer@bakernet.com

PS. It's nice how many responses I already got this afternoon just following my today's test mail, even from the US. (It was truly a test mail, with no content and nothing attached thereto, just for the purpose of finding out whether all email addresses, including the new ones I regularly get from our Alma Mater, actually work.) As a matter of fact, the former Attorney General just referred to in 4. above just mailed me: "Test bestanden" (test passed) - I am glad, you made my day, Carl Otto!

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