Foundation Festival: Honour for Gerhard Lis - "Ein Mann ohne Falsch"

Foundation festival in the Hotel Aspethera - honor for Gerhard Lis

"Without Gerhard Lis, the successful implementation of this major integration project would not have been possible and that is why we are very grateful to him.",said Regina Schafmeister, Chairwoman of the KOLPING-FORUM Paderborn Foundation, which has been running the Aspethera Inclusion Hotel at Busdorf 7 since 2006. "As chairman of the local Kolping family, he always had our backs, gave us courage and looked ahead," Schafmeister continued. After 15 years, Gerhard Lis has now retired from the Foundation Board.

Around the turn of the millennium, Gerhard Lis had driven forward the complete redesign of the old Kolping House into a modern KOLPING FORUM with a training hotel. In his address, Kolping National Praeses Josef Holtkotte described him as a "man without wrong" who had the ability to win people for a cause through openness, loyalty and helpfulness. "Back then, people who trusted each other came together for a forward-looking idea. That was the key to success," recalled Holtkotte, who was still Diocesan President in 2003.

During the traditional foundation celebration, further personnel details were announced: Werner Sondermann has left the Foundation Board. He moves to the Board of Trustees. Gottfried Schulz, Managing Director of the Kolping Education Centres Westphalia and Ruhr, was newly elected to the Board of Directors.

The members of the Foundation council are now:

Werner Sondermann, Stephan Stickeler, Bernhard Bauer, Hans-Peter Schütte, Matthias Loddenkemper and Diözesanpräses Sebastian Schulz.

The members of the Foundation Board are now:

Wolfgang Gelhard and Gottfried Schulz, and Regina Schafmeister as Chairwoman of the Foundation.

Text: Sascha Dederichs, Kolping Bildungswerk Paderborn
Image: Bernhard Bauer