75 YEARS OF ENCOUNTERS IN CAUX:
UPCOMING EVENTS

75 years of encounters, 75 years of stories, 75 years of people from all walks of life and all over the globe whose lives were touched by our conference and seminare centre in Caux!

A kaleidoscope of events, predominantly online, will recall the rich history of the centre and the impact of the reconciliation work, training programmes and conferences held here.

Discover more stories of our series 75 Years of Stories, join the online arts event Source and Inspiration on 29 May, look forward to another Caux Forum Online, a Day of Gratitude on 1 August, and much, much more….

We look forward to celebrating with you! !

MORE UPCOMING EVENTS

5 July - 1 August 2021:
Caux Forum Online

Like last summer, the Caux Forum 2021 (5 July - 1 August) will take place online and is part of a rich and creative range of events, celebrating our conference centre in Caux and 75 Years of Encounters! Stay tuned for the opening of registration in June!

1 August:
Day of Gratitude

Celebrate with us not only the gift that some incredibly visionary Swiss families and individuals gave to the world 75 year ago when they bought the Caux Palace Hotel, but also the role that the conference centre has played as a catalyst for change ever since.

75 YEARS OF STORIES - PART 2

1951 - Maurice Mercier: 'Not one cry of hatred'

‘He would have looked at home serving behind a bar down the street,’ the Swiss Jean-Jacques Odier wrote of his first meeting with Maurice Mercier. But Mercier's time in Caux led to an industrywide agreement transforming working conditions and industrial relations between workers and their employers in France’s textile industry.

1952 - Elsbeth and Adam Mclean: A Caux Wedding

When Elsbeth Spoerry from Switzerland helped to clean up the derelict Caux Palace for the first conference in 1946, she could hardly have guessed that, six years later, she would get married there to a Scot wearing a kilt and with over 1,000 conference participants as guests.

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1953 - Mohamed Masmoudi: 'Stop cursing the French'

In 1953, Mohamed Masmoudi, a young Tunisian nationalist living a semi-clandestine existence, came to Caux, more or less smuggled across the border into Switzerland. At Caux, he lost his hatred of the French and later became the first Tunisian ambassador to France after independence.

1954 - Sadie Patterson: 'Bury the hatchet or bury the dead'

When Saidie Patterson, a trades union organizer from Northern Ireland, spoke at the conference centre at Caux in 1954, she was keen to point out that this visit had not weakened her fighting spirit. ‘I thought this was something that made you soft, and I kicked against it for a long, long time. But believe me, friends, I have found that it is much harder to love a person than to hate them.’

1955 - Freedom: 'Do you think you could write a play?'

'We were catapulted into history,’ said Manasseh Moerane, one of the writers of Freedom. The play was seen by 30,000 people all over Europe and demand was so great that they decided to make a film. Freedom is thought to have been the first full-length feature film written and acted by Africans and filmed in Africa.

1956: The Zellers: A family invested in Caux

‘We had the great joy of deciding to sell our house and give the money to Caux,’ Anneli Zeller told the conference on the 29 July 1956.Their three children, Berti, Hildi and Robi, also worked with Initiatives of Change and became familiar faces in Caux over the next six décades.

1957 - Jessie Bond:
'I saw his greatness'

Jessie Bond was struggling to cope with four children and her husband’s frequent outbursts. She was seriously thinking of leaving him when they went to Switzerland to spend the summer in Caux. A time of quiet reflexion made her see her husband in a new light and helped save her marriage.

1958 - Angela Elliott: At school in Caux

Angela Cook (later Elliott) arrived in Caux in 1958, aged four. She was one of some 40 children who lived in Caux at different times between 1955 and 1965, attending a small chalet school just up the mountain from the conference centre.

1959 - Lennart Segerstråle: ‘Art must be dangerous to evil’

In 1959, a vast fresco was unveiled on the wall of the dining room of the Caux Palace. Its creator, the Finnish artist Lennart Segerstråle, chose the universal image of water to represent his vision of the Caux conference centre: a place where people come to the source to quench their inner thirst, and then take the water of life out to a thirsty world.

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Photo Day of Gratitude: Adrien Giovannelli / Photo water: Marta Dabrowska