Introducing the Taunabad and its supporters

Yesterday (Thursday, 15th August, 2013) the brand name for the new swimming pool in Oberursel was revealed: Taunabad.

How intentional the release was may well be unknown, or perhaps some of those from Oberursel’s town hall attending the press conference were just surprised at the fact that the name had not leaked out.

The real news of the day was the announcement  of the Förderverein Taunabad – a charity that has been founded to support the swimming pool.

In fact, the charity had been founded almost three months earlier, on 27th June to be precise, and there are 17 founding members.  Among them are Mayor Hans-Georg Brum, his deputy, Alderman Christof Fink, and the town’s treasurer Thorsten Schorr, along with clubs including the swimming club (SCO) and life-savers club (DLRG).

Chairman of the charity is Bertram Huke, who was once the Mayor of Königstein.  His deputy is Frauke Gunkel from the SCO.

They have several aims.  One is purely financial.  They want gain 100 members by the end of the year, each of who pays an annual membership fee.  Then they want to look for donations and arrange public money in order to by sports equipment and even set up a playground at the outdoor pool.

But they also want to market the new swimming pool and make it popular.  They are worried that people have either found something else to do with their time or have got used to going to a swimming pool in one of the neighbouring towns.  “We don’t just want to talk about people helping, we want to actually do something” they agreed.  At the end of the day they want to persuade the people of Oberursel to use the new pool.  The alone is necessary to make sure that the entry fees cover the running costs if possible.

The swimming pool itself – due to be finished some time in 2014 – will not be run by the charity, but they intend to work closely with the operator to make sure that everything runs smoothly.