An intense smell of beer is in the air. Impressed, billy and ina stand in front of a rough filter. "This is a noisy vat. This is where the solid parts of the mash, the 'treber', are separated from the liquid ones, the 'wurze'", explains brewer robert smith – but not in german, but in english, because he comes from england, more precisely from wallenfels' twin town of bingham near nottingham.
The murmur heard in the kaiserhof brewery that morning is also in english: words like "interesting" and "diamond" or "cool. The young participants in the brewery tour are exchange students from the KZG and caister high school in the district of kronach as part of the german-english school exchange program. The visit of the kaiserhof firefighters is part of an extensive program put together by the responsible teachers from the KZG, senior lecturer elke walthes and student advisor peggy kober.
"I like it very much in kronach", says 13-year-old billy pywell and adds: "i like the way kronach is divided into different levels – the upper and lower town – and i like the old buildings very much. I also like all the snow. In my home country, there is only a little snowfall sometimes, but it doesn't stick around." billy attends caister high school in the 5000-population town of caister-on-sea. The seaside resort in the county of norfolk in england is located directly on the coast, about five kilometers north of great yarmouth. The people of kronach are extremely hospitable, he said, and he received a very friendly welcome at school and got on very well with his host family. "I'm staying with phil wietasch in burggrub. We get along well. The communication, mainly in english, works very well", he revealed. He is already looking forward to phil's visit in the summer of 2013.
Billy takes part in the exchange program to learn more about germany and the people here and to improve his language skills. "The program that the school has put together is very varied. We went tobogganing, bowling and to the christmas market in mitwitz, for example. Today's tour was also interesting", he praises.
Ina has also already done a lot with her host family. Together they went ice skating, swimming, to the christmas market in kronach and shopping. She lives with anna-lena froba in buchbach. The reasons for their participation are similar to those of phil. She is also here for the first time. "Kronach is very different from my home. It's almost like two worlds – just in terms of the landscape. The food is different, the people dress differently. But it's great here and everyone is very nice", the 14-year-old is happy. She is sure that her knowledge of german has improved as a result of her stay here. She enjoyed the brewery tour because the brewer explained everything very well.

Perfect english
Robert Smith speaks perfect english for a simple reason. He is an englishman himself. "I have been to the county of kronach every two years with our music club as part of the town twinning of bingham and wallenfels. I did an internship at the kaiserhof brewery in 2004. I wanted to become a brewer and stay in the district of kronach. I emigrated to germany in 2006. I made friends right away, I enjoy my work a lot and I feel very comfortable here", says the 24-year-old.
The return visit of the kronach high school students to caister high school is planned for summer 2013. Then 18 seventh-graders from KZG will travel to england, including phil wietasch and anna-lena froba.
The two teachers in charge, elke waltes and peggy kober, are very pleased about the partnership. Since there are not many schools in england with german as a foreign language, they have been trying for a long time to find a corresponding partnership. Now in its second year, the project is running well and smoothly. That is why they want to continue. Since only six participants from caister high school registered this year, three students from lynn grove high school were included for the first time. This is in the town of gorleston, near great yarmouth in norfolk and pays around 1100 schoolchildren between the ages of eleven and 16.
The teachers thanked the sponsors for their support. Kronach creativ sponsored "kronach-leuchtet-kalender" as a guest gift. The car dealership vetter made its minibus available free of charge to take the children to the train station with their packs. In addition, the city of kronach took over the costs for the workshop in the frankische galerie as a funeral gift. Of course, the two teachers will also be there in the summer of 2013 – if the word gets out: the students from kronach are coming to england.

Gunter munch, spokesman for the free voters in adelsdorf, reacts with annoyance to a proposal from the local CSU faction regarding the establishment of a medical center and the creation of a concept for the areas of "care and nursing". Munch points out in a statement that the free choosers have already addressed a request of the same content to the municipality in mid august.

Already for the repeated time the CSU had helped itself at requests of the free wahler. So the free voters are for months with the burgers along the staatsstrabe 2264 in languages. "We applied for speed limits (which have now been implemented) and further measures to protect the arms and calm traffic. No sooner has the local CSU noticed this than they take up the issue and make similar requests for traffic calming. The issues for the upcoming municipal elections are missing here? Is one not close enough to the burger, in order to bring in here current, above all new topics? Do we really have to adorn ourselves with other people’s feathers here?? Apparently it is, because I can’t explain such an approach any other way", munch gets excited.

Josef hofbauer 50 young people between the ages of twelve and 17 responded to the call of youth welfare worker kathrin kurth-lipfert, who, together with representatives of the district youth ring, had invited them to a forum in the town hall of ebermannstadt. The goal: to learn more about the needs and desires of "generation Z to be experienced. Kathrin lipfert is positively surprised by the results. No other group can be found in as many places in the city as young people. The suggestions put forward were correspondingly extensive and varied.

It has become clear that life is not as well organized as is often assumed. Schools have free time, and they would like to spend it outdoors, sums up the youth welfare officer from ebermannstadt. The teens would like to see the skateboarding area spruced up with soccer goals and basketball hoops. But faster internet and free wi-fi were also on the wish list.

Her parents' general store, which she took over at an early age, determined the life of the jubilarian gertrud hartlohner. In the 1970s, she added fashion items to the assortment; the company adler-moden regularly held exhibitions in the store. Later, when she was struggling to care for her husband, she gave up the store.

Gerti, as everyone calls her, was born and went to school in windheim and is firmly rooted in her home community. She raised three children and is happy about her five grandchildren. With her husband michael, she traveled through the alps in a camper van she had converted herself and organized pilgrimages to maria vesperbild over many years. She is a member of the vdk local association and is still active in the association, whose chairman, josef trebes, celebrated her 80th birthday. Happy birthday. Mayor thomas loffler conveyed the congratulations of the municipality of steinbach am wald, pastor cyriac chittukalam, irmi neubauer and antonie schneider wished the jubilarian all the best on behalf of the parish community. 

Angela hartl feels like she's at the christmas gift-giving ceremony. "Look, easy as pie." she is just beaming. Then they let the wall bars slide away from the wall and back again.

Franziska (8) takes care of the save as a matter of course. "I think this is really great", the third-grader confidently adds. Mayor johann pfister (BI) grins for his part like a honey cake horse.

A planned rough concert in dusseldorf with stars like bryan adams and sarah connor before 13.000 spectators should only take place if the corona infection numbers allow it.

Michael brill, managing director of the operating company of the dusseldorf "merkur spiel-arena," pointed this out on saturday. "We are sticking to the event," he told the german press agency. But if the number of infections rose too high, the concert could not take place, and the fans would get their ticket money back in full.

With the establishment of a self-sufficient heat supply system, the shareholders of warmeversorgung neuenmarkt gmbh have successfully completed another phase in the development of private residential properties. According to the words of managing director klaus zahner, almost 20 properties were connected to the district heating network, which will be supplied with heat in the future via the biogas and wood chip plant.

The last work was done at the eichenweg. Further connections have already been made in the months before in birkenstrabe and dorfstrabe as well as in rosenweg. The main customers are the german steam locomotive museum (DDM) and the senior citizens' park "rosengarten.

People with and without disabilities should live here. People who are less well-off and for whom there is hardly anything suitable on the normal housing market: the merciful brothers gremsdorf are realizing 21 social housing units in the upper bachgasse in adelsdorf.

The land was bought by the community three years ago. "At that time already with the ulterior motive to create affordable housing", reported mayor karsten fischkal () at yesterday's groundbreaking ceremony. Gunther allinger, managing director of the barmherzige bruder, opened the floodgates a short time later when he approached fischkal with his idea of inclusive, social housing construction. "I was very pleased that we got together so quickly", according to allinger. Fischkal was happy to continue to enchant the property, after all, social housing construction is not necessarily the core task of a community. "We are glad that the merciful brothers are taking over the project." he revealed, however, that it will not remain the only project in the context of the housing development in adelsdorf.

Anyone who has seen a blue trolley in the district of kitzingen or schweinfurt has probably run into christian klingen. The direct candidate of the alternative fur deutschland (afd) distributed flyers from his mobile campaign vehicle and addressed voters. The 52-year-old wants to join the bundestag on behalf of the afd. His most important topics are democracy, euro rescue policy, immigration and internal security.

From klingen’s point of view, there is a certain political muddle in germany. The citizens were made to think they could change nothing and have no say anywhere. "That’s why we need more direct democracy at all political levels." how this could look? "By introducing referendums based on the swiss model," says klingen. If the people had been able to vote on the introduction of the euro, for example, klingen assumes that the euro would probably not have existed in the first place.

Sudden cardiac death is not just a problem for the elderly: an electrical accident, an inflammation of the heart muscle, overstraining through sports and much more can cause the most important muscle in the body to suddenly stop or only twitch without pumping blood. According to the bavarian ministry of the interior, at least 100,000 people succumb to sudden cardiac death in germany every year. By way of comparison, there were 3177 traffic fatalities last year, and fire and smoke kill around 500 people a year. Nevertheless, comparatively little is being done to combat sudden cardiac deaths. That's what the bad kissingen center for telemedicine (ZTM) is trying to change.
"With our AED offensive main-rhon we want to give something back to the region", says ZTM managing director sebastian dresbach. AED stands for automated external defibrillator (see info box). In the past three years, the ZTM has installed 31 devices in the region, 21 of which are directly connected to the rescue control center. Project manager thomas schreiner explains how the system works, using the example of the arcade building in the bad kissingen spa garden: a green sign with a heart and lightning bolt indicates the location next to the entrance to the tourist information office.

Automatic emergency call

annett ludeke, deputy editorial director of the saale newspaper, was shown how to use the device together with colleagues: "it's a situation that no one wants: a person is lying unconscious on the ground and is no longer breathing", the 38-year-old paints a picture of the initial situation. What then? "If someone is unconscious and not breathing, it's important that first responders start resuscitation as soon as possible", says schreiner, and: "with every minute, the chances of survival decrease by ten percent."
First responders can get additional help from an AED device: "ideally, it should be within reach within two or three minutes, says schreiner. The handling is very simple: when the device is removed from the arcade building, an employee of the integrated control center (ILS) in schweinfurt is directly connected: annett ludeke is allowed to test it, loosen the seal with a jerk and open the box. After just a few seconds, a member of staff answers the call. The 38-year-old finds this direct contact particularly important: "A real person who supports reanimation," says schreiner."
In the 21 stations with a control center connection, the actual defibrillator is mounted on a telephone unit. The device can also be used to make an emergency call if first responders don't have a cell phone with them. If the defibrillator is located in a nursing facility or a doctor's office, for example, the module is not necessary, which makes the station much more favorable. "However, the devices are then also not around the clock accessible", schreiner points out a disadvantage.
The 31 advised by the ZTM have already been followed by many others. "We were the motor for the region, but now it's a self-runner", emphasizes schreiner. Through reports and lectures, more and more communities, associations or companies have defibrillators installed. The youngest example is sulzthal: "this is a good contribution to the safety of our citizens", the local mayor august weingart (CSU) is pleased about the defi on the village square. It was financed by a crowdfunding campaign of raiffeisenbank hammelburg: in the project "demanding home the bank adds ten euros per donation. The total package costs between 3,000 and 4,000 euros," says schreiner. The actual defi is available from 1200 euros, plus home, control center connection and maintenance. "We are informed every time the building is opened, and then we go out and make everything ready for use again", reports schreiner, who looks after the devices with his colleague jurgen muller.