Dear Members, By now you will all have read that Graham Robertson has stepped down as Chairman and as Vice Chairperson I have stepped up and taken over as Acting Chairwoman until the next AGM. Our thanks go to Graham for all he has done for the BRA since he became Chairman 4 years ago especially his hard work in taking us forward and keeping the BRA afloat through the difficult times. He has always kept you the Members up to date with his interesting and informative mails which I know have been very much appreciated. We look forward to seeing Graham and his wife Di at future events. Taking on a new post is a bit like being in a relay race you take over the baton, run on and hope you are as good as all the previous runners, of course each one us of will run in our own way, but the end result is the same, to succeed. I would like to thank you all for your messages of support and goodwill. I am extremely lucky to have the support of the Council and hopefully be holding our next Council meeting on the 29 October, this […]

Heidi Bigmore, our new BRA Secretary, has UK and Swiss nationality, was born in England, educated in Scotland and lives with her family near to Schaffhausen. When younger, she lived in a number of European countries and she moved to Switzerland to work in 1994. Heidi is fluent in spoken and written German, has a good working knowledge of French and speaks basic conversational Italian, Spanish and Portuguese. With qualifications and wide experience in the tourism, hotel and catering industry, she more recently branched out to teaching English to adults and now runs her own British Shop and German-English language centre in Schaffhausen. Heidi is a committee member of the English Speaking Club of Schaffhausen and works to promote British culture and language locally. She came through as the preferred candidate in a selection process which included a large number of high-quality applicants. Once we have the opportunity again to arrange BRA National Events, you will have the chance to meet Heidi in person. Until then, she will be your new contact for emails, letters and telephone calls to the Secretary — but please give her a chance to adapt to our way of doing things. For my part, I […]

Dear Friends and Colleagues, I hope this message finds you well despite the challenging circumstances we are living through. I should like to take this opportunity to thank you for your continued commitment, resilience and the hard work for the British Residents’ Association, an organisation which plays an important role in bringing together some of the over 40,000 Brits living in Switzerland and Liechtenstein. We are grateful for your engagement, especially in times like these. You may be interested in some background on what the UK is doing in response to current pandemic. We are leading the way in tackling the spread of the virus as one of the biggest donors to the international response. We have already pledged £744 million of UK aid to help end this pandemic as quickly as possible. That includes £250 million towards the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations to rapidly develop a coronavirus vaccine. At home in the UK, it has been especially rewarding to see the overwhelming support for our NHS and other essential workers. Over 750,000 volunteers have registered to support the NHS in one of the biggest challenges it has ever faced, and every Thursday our country shows its appreciation by […]