Bremen – schnitzel, with pointed cabbage and potatoes. Ernst Eckstein was about to sit at the large dining table for lunch a few days ago when the phone rang shortly before 12 noon. At the other end of the line: Werder Bremen. More precisely: Frank Ordenewitz.
“Mach et, Otze”, once 272 Bundesliga games, 63 of them for green and white, one of the champions of SV Werder Bremen from 1988. What, please, did he want !?
Well, actually just hear what they say in the north, because that’s what Werder is doing right now: let’s hear how the older club members are doing in the times of Corona. Around 1,800 of the 40,000 or so Werder members are over 70 years old, which is why they belong to Coronavirus risk group. They all get a special call these days.
Werder Bremen member Ernst Eckstein is happy to receive a call from Frank Ordenewitz
“At first I was surprised, then I was very happy,” reports Eckstein, 70 years old, from the phone call Frank Ordenewitzwho has been with Werder since 2012 Chief scout for young talent works – and had very specific questions for the person he was talking to. Do you feel well cared for and healthy? Are your purchases organized? Do you come to the pharmacy if necessary? “We ask the basic needs of our older members,” explains Michael Rudolph, the association’s director of communications. As soon as problems arise, Werder forwards them to the Bremen Neighborhood Aid, for example, so that help can be provided quickly.
All employees of the association are asked to take part in the telephone campaign. The CSR department, organized by Werder’s social engagement, issues lists of 25 phone numbers each. If they are telephoned, they return the employees with comments. “We want to show that we are there for people,” says Rudolph, who also picks up the phone, asks, listens, and wants to help.
Werder Bremen: Frank Baumann, Klaus Filbry and Co. are all on the line
The management, consisting of Klaus Filbry, Frank Baumann and Hubertus Hess-Grunewald, participates as well as supervisory board chief Marco Bode. With a little luck, the older members will suddenly have a prominent Werder name on the line. Such as Ernst Eckstein, Member for five years, Werder friend for a long time, who of course knew something to do with the name Ordenewitz after the initial surprise.
And yet: the chat didn’t last too long. Firstly, because everything is fine with Eckstein, and secondly: well, lunch shouldn’t necessarily get cold right now. “I had to shorten the matter a little,” smiles the Bremen man. Ordenewitz should have coped with it. Finally, there are enough calls he has in front of him. In this sense: Mach et, Otze! (dco)
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