Dear friends,

We hope this message finds you well with the start of this new year. The entire 2020 Vision Campaign team wishes you and your family all the best for 2009.

With this message we bring you encouraging news as we ended successful Mayors for Peace membership recruitment in 2008.

Mayors for Peace recruited another 99 new member cities during December 2008. This brings the total to 2,635 member cities in 134 countries and regions. In 2008 Mayors for Peace welcomed 615 new member cities. This is an unexpected success as we had aimed at 365 new members for 2008, or an average of one member a day. We wish to thank all of you and our many supporters who have assisted us in the further growth of Mayors for Peace.

In December 2008 we welcomed new members from Belgium (9), Colombia (1), Israel (6), Italy (16), Japan (3), Nicaragua (32), Norway (1), Spain (16), Sri Lanka (12), UK (2) and USA (1). Please find detailed list on http://www.mayorsforpeace.org/english/topic/list/58.htm

In Belgium a new surge of new members since October 2008 were the result of a cross-party letter by the Mayor of Brussels, Bastogne and Ypres. Today 323 Belgian mayors out of a total of 589 have joined the organisation. This means that almost 55% of all Belgian Mayors have now joined the network campaigning for total abolition of nuclear weapons by 2020. In the Belgian regions of Brussels and Flanders membership is already well over 75%. Philippe Collard, the Mayor of Bastogne, announced that he would spare no efforts to raise membership in Wallonia, the French speaking region of Belgium. Bastogne officially inaugurated the opening of a new regional secretariat for Wallonia of Mayors for Peace on November 9th 2008 in the presence of Hiroshima Mayor Dr. Tadatoshi Akiba.

We also welcomed 6 new members in Israel, including the Mayor of Dimona, following an invitation from Mayor Akiba send to all Israeli Mayors urging them to join Mayors for Peace. Here we should acknowledge the
important work done by Greenpeace Israel who mailed a follow-up letter including a translation in Hebrew of the invitation of the Mayor of Hiroshima.  Ms. Sharon Dolev from Greenpeace Israel declared to be very encouraged by the initial results, also considering that the forst Mayors signing up their support are member of the right wing parties.

In Spain we continue to see an important growth with 16 new member cities following excellent work done by the Mayor of Granollers, a new Executive city of Mayors for Peace. Also the cross-party recruitment
letter co-signed by the Mayor of Firenze and spread electronically by the Italian Association of Municipalities continued to involve new Italian Mayors.

With the Mayor of Envigado we also welcome the first member in Colombia. In Nicaragua membership climbed with 32 new members up to 72 members.

We hope that this news will be an encouragement for all of you to develop new initiatives to recruit new members in your country and region.

We are sure that our common efforts during the next months will bring the elimination of nuclear weapons some steps closer.

With warm regards,

Pol D´Huyvetter

--
Executive Advisor Hiroshima Peace Culture Foundation
& Director Mayors for Peace 2020 Vision Campaign International Secretariat

City Hall
Grote Markt 34
8900 Ypres,
BELGIUM

Phone: +32-57-38 89 57
Skype:poltanner
E-mail: pol@2020visioncampaign.org
Website: www.2020visioncampaign.org
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