The newly opened cathedral and the art exhibition ‘Light and Transparency’ organised by the Foundation for Art and Culture are attracting record numbers of visitors. The rush to the papal basilica has not let up since the reopening of the cathedral at the end of October with a celebratory high mass and vernissage. The city deanery has reported around 30,000 visitors in the first 10 days alone. Every day, thousands of people are coming to see the renovated cathedral and the works of art by Monica Bonvicini, Anthony Cragg, Heinz Mack, Mariele Neudecker and Gerhard Richter.

This Sunday, 14 November at 12 noon, the patronal festival for the parish of St. Martin will be held in Bonn Cathedral for the first time in five years. The musical composition for the celebratory family mass has been arranged by cathedral organist Markus Karas and the Symphonic Wind Orchestra from the Kardinal-Frings-Gymnasium under the direction of Andreas Berger. City Dean Wolfgang Picken will deliver the sermon. Saint Martin himself will also be in attendance, performed by Martin Heide.

(Original text: buj)

Special stamp issue for GA-Weihnachtslicht campaign

Deutsche Post is issuing a special stamp for the GA-Weihnachtslicht association to help raise money for people living in poverty in the local region. To launch this year’s campaign, Katrin Langfeldt from the Deutsche Post group presented an oversized stamp to Bernd Leyendecker, chairman of the Weihnachtslicht Association, at the Post Tower.

The stamps, which have been issued for the GA-Weihnachtslicht campaign every year since 2012, have a postage value of 85 cents and are sold for one euro each. This year, Deutsche Post is providing 5,000 stamps, 2,000 more than in the past. To commemorate the Weihnachtslicht Association’s 70th anniversary in 2022, the stamp features the years 1952-2022 alongside the campaign logo and a flame with a giving and a receiving hand.

Readers can help support the campaign by franking their Christmas mail to loved ones with the special stamp or even buying the stamps as a gift for philatelists. The stamps can of course still be used for mail after Christmas.

The special stamps can be purchased at the following places:

(Original text: Ga­brie­le Im­men­kep­pel)

The municipal waste management and cleaning company Bonnorange has approved 38 new positions and is increasing its personnel costs by 1.1 million euro, bringing the total number of employees to around 480. Bonnorange was created in 2013 from the former Amt für Stadtreinigung und Abfallwirtschaft (Office for Municipal Cleaning and Waste Management) with around 350 employees at that time.

Bonnorange spokesman Jerome Lefèvre explains that the majority of the new jobs are in street cleaning, in order to fulfil the company’s goal of “a clean Bonn city from a single source.” Since the beginning of the year, Bonnorange has been given additional responsibility for cleaning parking bays throughout the city, as well as bus stops and mobile stations, he said. In addition, extra work is required for emptying waste bins, especially at the hotspots in the city centre and “in the Rheinaue on behalf of the city authorities, which is actually the responsibility of the Parks Department.”

The new appointments are accompanied by an increase in the fee rates for refuse and street cleaning for 2022, which the Council must decide upon at its meeting on December 9. The fees for street cleaning - minus the city's share - will increase by around 208,000 euros compared to 2021, and by around 1.6 million euros for waste disposal, according to the administration department.

(Original text: Lisa Inhoffen)

The city has waived its right of first refusal to the former post office site at Frankenbad, allowing the Swiss Life subsidiary Swiss Life Asset Managers to complete the purchase. Swiss Life is acquiring the 6895-square-meter site between Vorgebirgsstrasse, Kaiser-Karl-Ring and Dorotheenstrasse for 19.6 million EUR and plans to build offices and apartments there. According to a submission by the city’s administration department, the investor has accepted the urban development goals set by the planning committee and ensures that at least 50 percent of the construction will be residential. Of this, at least 40 percent is to be subsidised housing.

The investor has committed to financing a nursery, constructing the buildings in accordance with the KfW 55 energy efficiency standard, building green roofs and installing photovoltaics. The development plan procedure is now underway after the council approved the waiver of the right of first refusal in a closed session by a majority vote against the Bürger Bund.

(Original text: bau); (Translations: Caroline Kusch)