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Helmut and Brigitte Kiessl and all members of the organizational team are looking forward to many visitors at the first autumn meeting after Corona. © Christine Fauerbach
Bad Vilbel (cf). After a four-year Corona break, there will be another meeting of the “Alte Massemer 60 plus” community on the first Sunday in October. A team of twelve Massenheim citizens invites you to a get-together with chatter, music and singing in the Protestant community center.
The starting signal was given on October 15, 1977. Gretel Mohr had the idea. She wanted to invite everyone who was born in Massenheim, those who still live in the village and everyone who had moved away to a social gathering twice a year. The focus should be on reunions, telling stories, remembering, togetherness and community. Their idea met with great response in the Free State. She organized a first meeting in the “Weyland” restaurant, which was attended by 13 guests. This was followed by many more get-togethers for coffee, cake and dinner in spring and autumn.
The name of the meeting “Alte Massemer” said it all. All guests had to meet three criteria: be over 60 years old, be born in Massenheim and go to the village school. It was only relaxed in 1990, which is noted in the minutes. From then on, citizens of Massenheim aged 60 and over who had been living in the Free State for several decades were also invited. They included refugees and displaced people who ended up in the Bad Vilbel district after the end of the Second World War. Today all guests who are older than sixty and live in Massenheim are welcome. Neither the person who gave the idea nor her successors wanted to found an association. Gretel Mohr organized the community meeting until 1994. After that, Krimhilde Scharrer and, from 2001 to March 2014, Uta Freimann and Edeltraut Reith took over the organization together. Between 50 and 100 seniors took part in the meetings. Like all clubs in the district, the community received 500 euros from Massenheim forest money. The meals were paid for with these funds and the money from the “donation fund” amounting to around 350 euros. That was only enough because the cakes were baked by the women themselves and the organizers negotiated cheap menu prices in the restaurants.
INFO: Autumn meeting
The autumn meeting of the “Alte Massemer 60 plus” community will take place next Sunday, October 6th, at 2:30 p.m. in the Protestant community center, Hainstraße 23, in Massenheim. cf
The financial end came when the forest money was not received due to the unauthorized Bad Vilbel budget in 2014. Two years later, Brigitte and Helmut Kiessl, supported by Elisabeth and Winfried Bockhoff, decided to restart the meetings for the first time. At that time, Brigitte Kiessl had previously viewed documents from the “Alte Massemer”. In addition to attendance lists, there were also minutes, some of which were handwritten. “Dialect was spoken at the meetings, memories were exchanged, old stories were rehashed and photos from the past were looked at,” report Brigitte and Helmut Kiessl.
For the second time, the meetings were stopped due to the corona pandemic. Now a new, enlarged organizational team consisting of twelve people wants to get started again after four years. Brigitte and Helmut Kiessl, Karola Schneider and Oliver Seiler, Julia and Wolfgang Liebmann, Ellen and Werner Stockhausen, Steffi and Ulrich Schauder, Konny and Wilfried Grillmayer have plenty of organizational experience. The team has managed the museum café in recent years. »We look forward to continuing this beautiful tradition in Massenheim. Now the citizens are in demand. If a lot of people come, there will be a continuation in the spring,” says Brigitte Kiessl. With coffee and cake, citizens of Massenheim and former residents aged 60 and over have the opportunity to talk to each other. The autumn meeting will be musically accompanied by musical melodies and Schubert songs by musician Oliver Seiler and singer Ann-Kathrin Krieg.
