We met in a back room of the Swan, and most of the people who turned up were present or past trustees, members of the Town Council, and a few supporters.
Sandra Skinner opened the meeting with a quick run down of the achievements of Hay2Timbuktu since the twinning began in 2007 - supporting girls aged 11 - 14 through school, supplying solar powered lamps so children could do their homework, and fundraising for projects like building new toilet blocks in schools.
However, the twinning and the creation of the charity came at a time when there was a lot of funding available for that sort of thing, including a lot of help at the beginning from the Welsh Government initiative Two Towns, One World. That funding is no longer available, and the last two applications for funding were turned down. Having supported 80 girls through school, the charity has been unable to fund any girls this academic year.
The situation in Mali is also very difficult. Islamic insurgents took over part of the country in 2012, including Timbuktu, and life is still very unsettled there. It's a lot more difficult to get aid to Timbuktu than it was, and the last regular contact Sandra Skinner had with Timbuktu was six months ago.
It's also pretty much impossible for visits to take place. From the UK end, people are advised not to visit Mali, and from the Mali end - well, it's just about impossible for a single man to get a visa, even if they did go through the onerous process of travelling to Bamako, and then to Dakar in Senegal, to get a passport and apply for a visa, and most of the teachers in the schools in contact with Hay are single men. Married men have slightly more chance of being allowed to travel to the UK, but their wives also need to have a passport, which must be given up to the authorities while the husband is in the UK, so they are not able to join him here. The days of teachers coming into Hay and Gwernyfed schools, and medical personnel visiting the local clinics, and silversmiths demonstrating their crafts in the Buttermarket, are impossible to organise now.
So it's obvious that Hay2Timbuktu cannot carry on in the way that it has, and three of the trustees wish to step down, having worked very hard on all the projects for years. This leaves three trustees who wish to carry on with some sort of contact with Timbuktu, because everyone at the meeting agreed that the relationship with Timbuktu has had benefits to Hay as well as the obvious financial benefits to people in Timbuktu - the links with Hay School, for instance, were felt to be very important for our local children.
Mel Prince, one of the trustees who wants to continue, said that before Covid struck, there were plans to develop further links between the local WI and Mothers' Union and groups in Timbuktu, and perhaps between the Chamber of Commerce and the women's market traders group there, but that hasn't been possible yet.
Chrissy, the President of the local Lions club, offered fund raising help - she had checked before she came to the meeting, and there doesn't seem to be an active Lions club in Mali, but one of the things that the Lions do is to give assistance to other Lions clubs internationally (they've raised money for Ukraine to send to the Lions clubs there, for instance).
Gareth Ratcliffe, who was Mayor of Hay when the twinning first took place, suggested that Hay should have 'ambassadors' rather like the National Park ambassadors, to encourage the links between Hay and Timbuktu and publicise those links - as one lady said, when she tells tourists about the links, they are always interested. That's been my experience, too.
Several members of the current Town Council were also there, because the twinning process is set up between Town Councils - one of the Mayors of Timbuktu (there are about five of them!) has been an important contact. The charity, and the spin-off charities Jump4Timbuktu and Medics4Timbuktu, were set up to give practical help, but this is quite an unusual way for twinning to develop. This was felt to be a good thing, but Medics4Timbuktu wound up about four years ago. Jump4Timbuktu is still in regular touch with the artisans who sell their products at Haymakers, though. Gareth pointed out that the relationship between Hay and Timbuktu shouldn't rely on the interest of a few people, because when the enthusiastic councillors step down, there's always a chance that the new councillors will have no interest in the twinning project and it will be allowed to wither on the vine. In May, the Mayor will be elected by the councillors (this is an annual event), and that is probably the best time for the Council to discuss the future of the twinning process.
One of the Council's initiatives, the Timbuktu Trail, is now out of date and needs to be changed - one of the points on the route was the Council Chambers, illustrating the links of local democracy between the two towns, and the building no longer belongs to the Council.
It was also pointed out that what was needed was up to date information from Timbuktu to help the Friends of the charity make a decision about the future - how many girls had continued in school thanks to the help from Hay, and how many of the solar lamps were still being used, for instance. Also, the people in Timbuktu, especially the Mayor and teachers who had been involved in the projects, should be contacted if at all possible to make clear how the situation in the UK had changed, and to ask their views about how they wanted the relationship between the two towns to develop.
So the consensus in the room was that Hay2Timbuktu should continue, but at a much reduced level than it had been working, and with more emphasis on educational and other links rather than fundraising for projects, with a hope that more can be done when international relations become easier.
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