On 10 December, the new Mayor of Reading, Rachel Eden, became the second Reading Mayor to sign a brick for the Mayor’s Brick Exchange, a ‘new tradition’ initiated by Matt Hulse and Julia Zinnbauer on 4 September 2021, when Reading’s then Mayor, David Stevens, signed a brick at an event at Jelly. Düsseldorf’s Oberbürgermeister Stephan Keller also signed a brick at the Düsseldorf Rathaus in October 2021.
The small group of attendees at the signing was treated to a brief tour of the display cases outside the Mayor’s Parlour, which contain many objects related to Reading’s twinning relationships with Düsseldorf, San Francisco Libre (Nicaragua), Clonmel (Ireland) and Speightstown (Barbados), and its friendship with our namesake in the US, Reading, PA.
The brick signed by Oberbürgermeister Keller will also soon be on display in the cabinets outside the Mayor’s Parlour.