Cork-San Francisco Twinning Connections

I’m honoured to be Chair of the Cork-San Francisco in Cork City Council and our committee in an attempt to draw investment and cultural ties betwen the cities, a number of projects for this year have been discussed in recent weeks.

Part of the email content recently sent to San Francisco Twinning Committee highlighting discussed objectives:

“A sincere thanks for the  $1,000; the contribution will go to our worthy flood victims. We had snow over the last couple of days, which caused its own problems. Usually Cork gets a rainy winter; this season we have got storms, flooding and snow!

 

We held a Cork-San Fran committee meeting on last Tuesday afternoon. We have a great energetic group on this side. A number of ideas have emerged which we can discuss at our video-conferencing meeting;

In terms of finance on our side, our committee has c.E18,000 for the development of projects. It has been proposed by committee members on our side that we invest in two projects instead of spreading out the funding- E.9000 each and try to find match funding on your side. The two projects proposed involve:

(1) – developing a heritage-arts project that connects both cities and would bring tourists both way (possibly a research emigration project?)

(2) – developing of Web of Stars with more schools in Cork and local schools in San Francisco

 

We also probably have E6,000 more to invest in smaller projects like the production of a website, contributions to interested twinning groups.

 

There is also a thirst to draw investment our way via:

 

– To develop connections in the science world (biotechnology etc) between Cork Institute of Technology, University College Cork and SF industries

– To develop trade missions between the two cities via Cork Chamber and SF Chamber

 

– To develop the jazz connections; I know you mentioned seeing if there was an interest in people coming to Cork in October – it may also be an idea to send a jazz player to SF to set up a mini jazz festival in the United Irish Cultural Center?

 

The above is probably a proposed agenda from our side. I know your committee will also have ideas and contacts. Perhaps if you can send back what you would like to discuss as well, we can build an agenda for our meeting on the 26th”.

 

 Kieran McCarthy

 

More history on the Irish-San Francisco connections:
 
A New Frontier