Newberg Delegation Prepares for Poysdorf

NEWBERG, Ore. — In a room at the Windrose Conference and Meeting Center in Newberg, a group sits around a large, U-shaped table, walking through a checklist of discussion items before they move to the next room over, where an easel and instructor wait to check up on the group’s German language progress.

“I’ve been practicing,” said delegate Wallace McKeel. “I’ve been listening to podcasts, and watching German TV.”

The group of 14 delegates will serve as representatives of Newberg as they journey across the Atlantic to connect with one of Newberg’s two sister cities: Poysdorf, Austria. They met together for the final time on Aug. 7 before embarking on the journey in early September, a trip they take every four years. A delegation from Poysdorf visits Newberg every four years, with a two-year gap between the visits.

“We’re as ready as we’re ever going to be,” said Brandon Slyter, CPRD board member and head of Connect JPN. He recently founded Connect Newberg to serve as a nonprofit entity to help ease the burden of coordinating the delegations for both Poysdorf and Newberg’s other sister city, Asago City, Japan.

“We’re going about 100 miles an hour learning, making mistakes, and getting course corrected by Waltraut [Goertzen],” Slyter said.

Goertzen initiated the connection between Poysdorf and Newberg in 2004. An Austrian exploring the United States, she settled in Oregon and raised her family. When visiting her homeland, she began noticing the similarities between Newberg’s growing wine industry and Poysdorf’s historic one, prompting the connection that grew into a sister city relationship — a broad-based, long-term partnership between cities in the U.S. and cities in other countries, according to Sister Cities International.

McKeel, the director of direct-to-consumer sales for Jackson Family Wines, traveling as a Newberg delegate for the first time, said she is looking forward to tapping into that connection, specifically the area’s historic wine industry, and hoping to bring some of those lessons home.

“The cool thing about Poysdorf is it’s very similar in scope to Newberg,” McKeel said. “It’s 45 minutes outside of a major metropolitan area, and a wine-centric town. What I want to learn is how the local governing organizations there promote, support, and interact with wine tourism, and how those things interplay.”

The delegation is visiting during Bezirkswinzerfest, which translates to “Winegrowers Fest” and is heralded as the largest wine festival in the region by the Poysdorf tourism agency Vinoversum. The festival features a tour of the town’s “cellar lanes,” wine landscape tractor tours, and wine tastings.

“It’s exciting to know that we’re going to do this cultural exchange, and then see them in a couple years on our side,” McKeel said. “We’ll really forge those connections and relationships going forward.”

Outside of industry, the delegation hopes to put down roots for a future middle school exchange, similar to the relationship between Chehalem Valley Middle School and Wadayama Middle School in Asago City, Japan. Lynn Lamping, an educator and accredited training fellow at the Oregon Dyslexia Institute, said she and other Newberg-Dundee School District educators are going to meet the middle school principal and discuss the logistics of setting up an exchange group.

“They want to come here, and our kids want to go there,” she said. “It’s very exciting.”

Lamping said she was not a big international traveler before she and her husband had the opportunity to join the delegation for its 2022 trip, but at her husband’s urging they decided to go. The experience gave her perspective on another culture and the importance of traveling to other places.

“It was such a unique human experience,” she said. “We walk down cellar lane, and people you don’t even know are inviting you into their homes and their little cellars. They have small tables set up with wine, and we’d sit down with them like we had been friends forever. They were very trusting — I’ve never felt that before in my life.”

Slyter’s family will be attending as a whole. His wife, Rebekah, is a staff engineer at A-dec and hopes to find or rekindle some industry connections during the visit. His children, Remy and Reia, a middle school student and an elementary school student, respectively, will also be traveling to provide a student’s perspective on the trip for future students to follow in their footsteps.

Lynn Weygandt, the owner of the Windrose Conference and Meeting Center and former delegate, is not attending this year. But she stays involved in the planning to ensure the relationship continues and strengthens.

“I’m excited for a whole new group of people to experience this,” Weygandt said. “I’ve been there four or five times. The Winzerfest experience — the music, the dancing — all of that. Plus, the people will embrace [the delegation]. I’m so excited for them to experience it.”

A Renewed Relationship

In December 2025, city councilors discussed the possibility of severing the official relationship with one, if not both, of the sister cities. A report from City Manager Will Worthey, provided by then-Human Resources Director Alison Seiler, examined the staff and financial costs of maintaining the relationship, seeking to understand the return.

“The questions are: why did we enter into these relationships; are the reasons we entered into these relationships still valid in 2025; and then I felt the last question was: would the residents of Newberg support us using their dollars to send people on trips to either Poysdorf or Japan?” Seiler said in the December meeting.

Sister city delegations pay their own way; however, an accounting from the city presented at the December city council meeting reported the city previously spent approximately $8,000 in public funds on events and entertainment when the Poysdorf delegations visited Newberg in 2024.

Slyter appeared before the city council to defend the relationship and provide an update on his progress developing the 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, Connect Newberg. He argued recognition of the relationship did not have to end, even without any city funding.

“I think severing the ties would be a real disservice to the people who are thoroughly engaged,” Slyter said at the December meeting. “And to speak a little harshly, I think it would be kind of an international embarrassment for Newberg to end that connection. I think the people in Poysdorf would be left wondering what they did wrong, if they offended us, or why we wouldn’t want to be associated with them.”

During the Jan. 20, 2026, city council meeting, councilors expressed support for the sister city relationship, given that it would not rely on public funds. At the Aug. 17, 2026, city council meeting, Mayor Rosacker made a proclamation commending, congratulating, and thanking all who have helped develop and strengthen the City of Newberg’s sister city relationship with Poysdorf, Austria.

Traditionally, the delegation provides gifts for their hosts. Slyter heard that the Poysdorf delegates expressed interest in Newberg’s indigenous culture and contacted indigenous artist Squeek Nowels, who created a handmade basket using Newberg-local materials. The small basket will be filled with other Oregon products, such as marionberry jam, alongside a collection of Oregon wines with German roots.

The delegates are traveling over from Sept. 6 to 8 and returning on Sept. 17.