Day no. 3.

A hard and tiring day, mainly because of mistakes we made in the preparations for this project. It becomes clear that it will not be possible for me to meet 12 or even 13 mayors a day and neither to drive always within 20 minutes from one meeting to another. This is a mad-race, creating tension for me (as I hate being late) and is not fair for the mayors where I arrive late. Mea culpa; hopefully my assistant Gyula will protect me from any further hubris on my part. The schedule for the first county (seven days) could not be changed anymore, but for the other 18 counties we should change in a way to have only 8 meetings a day and to carefully calculate the kilometers between the places of the meetings. Never too old to learn!

The positive side of the day were the pleasant and constructive meetings in the mayors' offices.
The first appointment was in Tatabánya and also the most important one as the city has about 75.000 inhabitants. A very kind welcome by Mr Takács János, képviselő and Mr László Ferenc, aljegyző, while Barbara Botos with her fluent English was the best possible interpreter. Local television was waiting for an interview and local newspapers will write about our project. I believe it will be extremely difficult to get 75.000 members from Tatabánya and any success will much depend on the personal input and guiding from the municipality. I am very curious.

The meeting with Dr Sándor Nagy, the mayor of Vértesszőlős, was exceptionally inspirational. It is wonderful to hear and feel so much support (asking for extra posters to hang at strategic places in the city; the offer of local television and radio "to spread the word", etc.). The fact that Dr Nagy could speak in English, made the conversation a lot easier for both. The number of inhabitants of 3.000 would justify only 3 membership cards; however ten cards were requested!I am very grateful for his kind support.