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OVERSEA TOPICS: GERMANY
Promotional Activities in Europe
The Gateball was introduced into Germany first.
As this year is "Germany in Japan (Deutschland in Japan)", the World Gateball Union (WGU), with some Japanese Gateball players, had visited three cities and first promoted Gateball in Germany during September 27 to October 4, 2006.

Since WGU was established, WGU has been successfully promoting GTBL over the world, but it is still in initial stage in Europe. When the members of the Germany-Japan Association (Deutsch-Japanische Gesellschaft e.v.) visited Japan for promoting an event of "Germany in Japan", and they visited to WGU office too, and the right moment came to make the first step to introduce GTBL in Germany. In Germany, the population of aged people is increasing same as Japan and they are looking for a sport that not only for elder people but also can be played together with all age.

A group of WGU first visited the Turngemeinde Sport Club in Berlin that was founded in 1848. Unfortunately, it was a rainy day, so GTBL was demonstrated inside the tennis court. The Chairman and the Manager of this Club also joined the game and enjoyed for the first time. WGU promoted the members of this Club that GTBL is a suitable sport for all ages and ask to try playing more.

Next, WGU' group visited Wolfsburg city, the focused place for this promotional visiting. Wolfsburg is the city of 13million populations and located about 220km west of Berlin, where the headquarters of world famous car company "Volkswagen" is located. What is more, the city is rich in greenery, and is welcome to new sports and cultural activities. The promotional activities were held in the VFR Eintracht Stadium (artificial lawn for soccer) that is organized by a sport club of city. Thanks to prior PR activity of this trip by the Germany-Japan Association, a total of more than 50 people, including the Mayor Kolbe, of Wolfsburg city, members of elderly club, members of Germany-Japan Association, and students from the local sport clubs, were joined. At first, the participant were observing GTBL interestingly, but at last they enthusiastically playing GTBL when they took the sticks. The next day was a rainy day and when the members from Japan wore their rain coats and played the game, the participants also put up their umbrellas and joined the game together. The President Teruko Balogh of Germany-Japan Association was amazed and said "It is unbelievable that we still play while it rains".

At the end, an GTBL exchange tournament was held among the participants of the local people and the Japanese member team, and the winner was a member from the local senior computer club. At the last stage of this trip, this group visited Braunschweig city, located about 50km from southwest of Wolfsburg city. The population is 26million and is a historical and cultural city since 12B.C. The promotional activities were held at the local park and about 20people were joined. There were the participants who joined all activities in above three cities and were very interested in GTBL. The members of Germany-Japan Association were the main participants and played the game. The GTBL lover in Germany already seemed to have been born.

Thus, the activities which were accomplished in the three cities, the used sticks and gates from Japan were donated to the local cities including the sports clubs. Especially in Wolfsburg city, they wanted to hold the GTBL exchange games next year and requested visiting more participants from Japan immediately. This promotional activity was a successful journey for the future GTBL in Europe.




BERLIN

The member of group in front of Brandenburger Tor
 
WOLFSBURG

Greetings from the Chairman of sports club

The First Challenge to pass the first gate
 
The WGU group was welcomed at the Party organized the Mayor Schnellecke
 
BRAUNSCHWEIG

A writer from the news paper was joined, and experienced new sport
 

Exchanging gift with the mayor Harlfinger




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