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Our activities for October

Saturday, 4^th October from 19.00 hours onwards
Bavarian Night at Messina Palace which will be open to the general public.  Our Restaurant will be serving Bavarian style food and drinks.  A 3-piece Brass Band will be playing Oktoberfest marches and polkas.
Come and bring your friends.

German Film Evening showing “Die innere Sicherheit”
Introduced by Frau Sirka Facklam
Friday, 10^th October at 6.30p.m.
Director: Christian Petzhold (2000)
Plot: Clara and Hans are left-wing terrorists, who are chased by the police since almost fifteen years. The puberty of her increasingly rebellious daughter Jeanne imposes a threat on their security, when she falls in love with a boy, who she has met on the beach.
Entrance is free. 
Members of the German-Maltese Circle and their friends are welcome!

A Choir Evening
with Chamber Music of Five Centuries
by the VOCal ENSemble from Hamburg 
on Friday, 17^th October at 19.30 hours,
at Messina Palace,
St. Christopher Street, Valletta

VOCal  ENSemble was founded at the end of 2006 by eight persons who had the pleasure of music in common, who liked to play music and to sing together in their spare time. The Ensemble is mainly dedicated to chamber music, in the sense of musical compositions suitable for choir performance. The members believe in a high standard of interpretation of the music combined with real pleasure in performing.

Tickets for this Concert are available from the Circle’s Office on a first come, first served basis against a donation of €2.50.  Members and their friends are welcome – do not miss out on this enjoyable evening.
 

Tour to Adenau - Flashback

The tour for members of the GMC to the sister organisation Deutsch-Maltesische Gesellschaft in Adenau took place as planned, while enjoying best German summer weather. Coach tours through the Eifel Mountains and to Cologne, as well as car racing on the Nürburg Ring,  forest walks, and the “Heimatfest” were enthusiastically followed by the participants. On Saturday, the former German Ambassador to Malta, Mr. Georg Merten, opened the very successful exhibition of paintings by our member Adrian Camilleri in the Commandery of Adenau. And the presence of a further special guest, namely Mr. Gerhard Kunz, who was German Ambassador to Malta before Mr. Merten took office in 2001, gave rise to many happy re-unions of members of both associations as well as friends in Adenau.                 

Language Courses

Language Courses 2008-2009 beginning on:
Wednesday, 1st October  -  Short Course for Beginners  (Learn German the Fast & Fun Way)
Saturday, 4th  October   -  German language classes for schoolchildren
Monday, 6th October / Tuesday, 7th October  -  German language classes for adults
Wednesday, 8th October  -  Maltese language course for Foreigners

Regular attendance is essential for success in these courses.  Students are informed that no one will be allowed to sit for end-of-course examinations should his/her attendance during the year be less than 70%.  The recommended textbooks are available from the Circle’s Library.  Scholarships consisting of 4-week German language courses at a Goethe Institute in Germany will be awarded to the best students in the adult courses.  

Silvan Mugliett
Mechanical Engineer
Member of the German-Maltese Circle
Interviewed by Ingrid Kidder

The cradle of Silvan Mugliett stood in Għaxaq, where he still lives with his parents. He attended Secondary School at Qormi (Liċeo Vassalli) and the New Lyceum in Msida with emphasis on the subjects of physics and mathematics (pure and applied). In 1994 he finished his studies at the University of Malta as a qualified Mechanical Engineer.  

For such specialised education one of the few companies offering a field of work was Enemalta Corporation. He was employed as a maintenance engineer at Delimara Power Station where he was mainly responsible for four gas turbines installed there. His job involved co-ordinating maintenance work on these units as well as ordering necessary spare parts from approved suppliers. Planning ahead is important as these items need to be ordered from abroad.  

Most gas turbines in the world use natural gas as a fuel but since Malta has no connection to the gas pipeline crossing the Mediterranean, the Delimara gas turbines are run on diesel. Silvan explained, that gas turbines rotate at a high speed, typically 5100 revolutions per minute, and operate at very high temperatures. Frequent inspections are necessary and components subjected to stresses and wear must be replaced periodically. A number of safe working procedures have to be adhered to in order to prevent accidents. 

The old Marsa Power Station, has never been dismantled and even today is still needed to complement the output of the Delimara Power Station. These two stations are the only source of electricity for the entire archipelago, supplying Gozo and Comino by means of submarine cables resting on the seabed.  In 2007 Silvan was transferred to the Marsa Power Station, where he is working in the Procurement Section. His current post involves the evaluation of offers for general items and services. These are acquired following a public call for offers. Each offer has to be studied meticulously in order to select the most suitable one from a technical and financial point of view. The Corporation purchases material from various countries including Europe, China and India.  

This is the very painstakingly exact professional world in which Silvan lives and breathes during day time. No wonder that his private interests are of an entirely different nature: He is a photographer by heart emphasizing on landscapes, architecture and historic buildings in Malta as well as abroad. An ardent traveller during his holidays he so far pursued his hobby in Europe, the Mediterranean, and North Africa. He realised that each place has its different identity and likes to tell many small but significant stories pertaining to the various countries. Memorable destinations include Morocco, Turkey, the Czech Republic, the Aeolian Islands and St. Petersburg in Russia. 

His independent travels began in 1995, when he together with a friend went hiking in the Tatra Mountains of Slovakia, where the two young men got lost in the forest in the dark.  They kept on walking until they saw a light moving in the distance – and guessed correctly that it was a car. Keeping to that direction, they finally reached a road and eventually arrived at their starting point.  

“How did the German language enter Silvan’s life?” I wanted to know. Well, he has an younger sister who learnt German at school and used to work as a licensed tourist guide – and Silvan’s ears picked up German sounds every now and then.  

But his real interest developed at a later stage:  while planning to visit Berlin en route to Poland as an exchange student in 1994, he borrowed a little German language self-teaching book from the library. The exchange visit never materialised as he was in the meantime employed by Enemalta. But his interest in the German language remained and as if with some fate, on his first working day at Delimara, in October 1994, he also started his first German course at the German-Maltese Circle in Valletta!  

From then on there was no stopping him to really apply himself to the German language. He came first in the class, and won a four-weeks’ scholarship at the Goethe Institute in Rothenburg ob der Tauber, a beautiful medieval city in Bavaria. Although he was still attending Grundstufe at the German-Maltese Circle, in Rothenburg he was assessed to be placed in the Mittelstufe. He remembers well that this concentrated learning experience was of great benefit to him. He continued his German studies at the German-Maltese Circle, finally passing his ZOP with “Gut” in December 2007.         

Yet, while working hard to bring his standard of German to a practical and conversational level, there are also other languages at Silvan’s disposal. Apart from his native Maltese and English, he studied French, Italian and some Arabic at school; and out of curiosity he also learnt Esperanto.  Silvan explained: “Esperanto was created in 1887 by Dr. Ludwig Zamenhof from Poland. He wanted to build up a language which would be simple and yet be able to express all human thoughts. Having such a second language for all mankind, there would be no more language barriers. Zamenhof, who knew several languages, took vocabulary and grammatical concepts from all of them and Esperanto was born”. For some decades Esperanto saw a rise in popularity, national delegates – like Silvan Mugliett – are trying to maintain it. 

Silvan appears to be a genuinely happy young man, very satisfied with his life and its prospects. Therefore his motto did not astonish me. With a rather serious expression in his face he said:  “Try not to lose what you have, and appreciate the fact that you have it!”
 

News from the Deutsch-Maltesische Gesellschaft

Since its foundation in 1991 Mr. Bernd Schiffarth, Mayor of Adenau, worked at the helm of the Maltese-German Association as President, and led it to be the sound and responsible bilateral organisation we know today. Adenau became the geographical base for the Association, and many interesting activities initiated by Mr. Schiffarth and the Präsidium took place or started there. However, Mr. Schiffarth said of himself, that he had reached the age where withdrawal from some public offices seemed to be apt. One consequence was the stepping down as president of the Deutsch-Maltesische Gesellschaft, which was regretted by all concerned. Yet, he promised to stay attached to the Association. 

At the occasion of the Annual General Meeting of the Deutsch-Maltesische Gesellschaft, held on 7^th September, 2008, Mr. Christian Launer was unanimously elected as new President of the Deutsch-Maltesische Gesellschaft with immediate effect. As a long standing member of the Deutsch-Maltesische Gesellschaft, as well as of the German-Maltese Circle, he is well-known to many Germans and Maltese alike. He is a retired lawyer and lives with his wife Bettina in Cologne – only an hour’s drive from Adenau. Together with the Präsidium he will be well suited to look after the affairs and events of the Association in the future. We wish him good luck and much success in his new role.

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