All 45 entries tagged 2005

Solidarnosc conference log update

- Dr. Charles Turner agreed a week and a half ago to be the project’s academic sponsor, a ceremonial tutoring role which basically means he gives us technical backing in the course of the event.

- Conference room has been booked.

- A blog address, blogs.warwick.ac.uk/polonia, has been requested and we are awaiting confirmation from the blog administrator. This page will contain news updates running up to the event, background reading (such as interesting articles, bios of our speakers etc), further info (related conferences, for whoever wants to know more) and we will also post this log on it. The diary is meant to give an idea of obstacles we’re experiencing and to help us keep track of where we stand in the organisation.

- Marcin will attend the conference “Solidarnosc + 25, Solidarnosc and Britain” at King’s College in London this Saturday and he is looking at finding someone to accompany him. Maarten will be unable to attend the conference.

- We’re facing problems getting some of the speakers confirmed. This will need to happen soon if we want to get started on informing the university community and beyond about the event. Advertisement cannot start until some of the basics are secured.

End of the update.

: 07 Nov 2005 18:23 |  Tags: 2005 Education English |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Next Heat!

We’re looking at the playlist for next Heat (Thursday week 8, be there!)

If you have any special requests, please post them here. We’ll then see if we can get hold if the songs!

Hope to see you all there next week.

Cheers, Maarten

: 07 Nov 2005 10:18 |  Tags: 2005 English Music |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Second Week of Preparations, a Few Developments

Following up on our meeting with Mike Neary last week Friday, Marcin and me decided to have a weekly meeting about the conference to keep a regular and speedy pace in the organisation. Hopefully this will allow us to stay on top of the situation.

Primarily, we are concerned with financial backing at the moment. This we mostly try to bring about by making some academics in different departments enthusiastic. The history department, after pledging to help us, have now secured us £200.- The Reinvention Centre situated in the Sociology department offers us the big bulk, £1000.-; a fund available for any undergraduate participating in research/academic activity-based learning. To apply for this fund, we need to have the backing of an “academic sponsor”. We are currently hoping to attract Dr. Charles Turner for this role. Dr. Turner studied in Warsaw and Cracow for a number of years and speaks fluent Polish, beside already pledging to be interested in the topic of Solidarnosc. At the very least, he will be one of the Conference’s speakers, but we are awaiting his response to our request with hope.

Further funds we are still looking into, are potential grants from the Politics department, which department is already providing us with a speaker; the International Office, although we are not sure if they have any budget allocation for such projects; the Centre for Translation, whose director, Dr. Piotr Kuhiwczak, has already declared to be very interested in the conference.

In the meanwhile, Marcin is sorting out the definitive outline of speakers, which is the task he primarily deals with. We are still awaiting replies from a number of high-profile speakers.

End of this week’s summary of events.

: 21 Oct 2005 14:58 |  Tags: 2005 Education English |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

First Week Into the Conference Preparations

Although the conference is planned only for February 2006, we are now (luckily) already starting the preparations full blast.

We have been meeting with dr. Mike Neary of the Reinvention Centre based in the Sociology Department on campus, which has turned out to be a lucky bid. From being a society with no budget for this year, we now have potential access to a one-time £1,000.- grant to organise this event. Although this will probably still not be exactly enough, it will help us a whole way further to get stuff done.

Marcin Stepan, our society’s president, is presently busy with finalising the day’s programme. Getting the speakers confirmed, appointing chair persons for every plenary session (preferably Warwick persons), having a sense of security about a lecture area to hold the event, all of these points will need to be addressed to give the event a greater sense of tangibility. Once we have a clear outline and vision of what we want, I feel the rest will come naturally… getting into action to organise everything, making a tighter budget, applying for funds, and starting to think about how to reach out to the university community and beyond there. Our idea is, for example, to invite several Polish societies in universities across the UK.

Our interest at the moment also goes out to a conference on “Solidarnosc and Its Influence in the UK”. As Lech Walesa, founder of the movement and former Polish president pointed out, Solidarnosc “changed the face of the Earth”, and possibly not just as traditionally seen within the bloc of communist countries during the 1980s, but also within the western political spheres. It will be interesting to get a better sense of how Solidarnosc was regarded and how it managed to influence political opinion as well as British foreign policy at the time. The conference is set on 12 November at King’s College in London.

: 14 Oct 2005 13:55 |  Tags: 2005 Education English |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

In Preparation of a Conference

It has been quite a while since I posted anything up on this blog – mostly just for lack of time. A lot of things needed to be sorted out these first few weeks, while I have committed myself to quite a few activities outside of the curriculum. One of them is an exciting initiative by Warwick Polonia to organise a conference on the worker’s union Solidarnosc (outside of the Polish-speaking world better known as Solidarity) which this year celebrated its 25th anniversary.

But how does one organise a conference, if he has never done it before? What are the things to look at, to keep in mind, to work toward?

1) Setting a date. Chosing a prefered yet realistic date somewhere in the future by which time the conference can be organised.

2) Content. Decide what you want to talk about. Who gives added value to the chosen topic of debate. What aspects will give an innovative touch to the conference? Who will we invite, what is manageable?

3) Sorting out money. Making a budget, incorporating all financial aspects of point 2).

• To be further elaborated (although advice is always welcome) *

: 12 Oct 2005 13:58 |  Tags: 2005 Education English |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Photography and art

A photo project with my friends here in the Gooi region of the Netherlands is taking its first, careful steps. The idea, to photograph my small home town of Eemnes (which recently celebrated its 650th anniversary and has a rich history with a royal palace and local castle nearby) in new ways. To shed a new light on the looks of this small place with less than 9,000 inhabitants and to show places few people know of.

In doing so, I am discovering Eemnes all over myself. I notice starting to look at everything through different eyes. Lately me and my friends Xander and Flex have been looking for places we hadn’t been to before, even in this small town. The truth is, it has vast natural areas of flat land that are hardly visited. Also woods and a river area on the outskirts bring an unexpected new beauty to my idea of Eemnes.

Today we visited our local history museum to look at a collection of photos from their archives. They were hundreds of photos by a pensioned colonial officer named Vermandel, who settled in Eemnes in 1951. The differences are remarkable, the town was strikingly small and open in those days. It brings a new depth and new ways of thinking about how we see and would like to represent the town today, anno 2005.

The two photos depicted were both taken by me during the Christmas holiday of 2004. The top one shows the Eemnes lock with its lock house. The lock is centuries old and was renovated in 1994. The bottom one shows one of the roads leading into a flat landscape stretching for about 3 kms onto the River Eem. This land is entirely manmade.

: 23 Jul 2005 19:22 |  Tags: 2005 A Word On Art English |  Comments (2) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

New Heat DJs!

Dear audiences! You’re reading the blog of one of next year’s Heat DJs! Did audition today with my mate Tom Rohland, and they decided to hire us! Hope to see you all next year, and if you come early to tomorrow’s Heat, you’ll hear Tom opening the evening in the Cooler!

We’d much appreciate any music suggestions you might have for next term’s Heats!

: 22 Jun 2005 20:02 |  Tags: 2005 Education English |  Comments (2) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Multiskins become the Rrrrs…. New free demo download!

Writing about web page http://www.headtones.com/the_rrrs

Did you see us play on the Piazza last Monday? Hope you liked it. If you did, or only just vaguely remember what it sounded like, weren’t there, or just love free stuff, then find your way to our site where our freshly recorded track I Feel Great can be downloaded for free. We recorded it in a farm studio near Coventry last Sunday.

: 22 Jun 2005 17:47 |  Tags: 2005 English Music |  Comments (2) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Music

Writing about web page http://www.sziget.org

My days at Warwick since the exams have gone like Michael Schumacher in his F1 on one of his good days: really fast.

Lately, life has been somewhat dominated by musical pursuits. Since I joined the Multiskins (which has, as I understood today, fashionably changed its name to the Rrrrrrs to remain avant-garde of the indie scene) I play in two bands and around the Student Arts Festival this involves quite a bit of rehearsing. Tonight I’ll be playing my first gig at our Union (excluding some fiddling about at the Graduate, that is). The Rrrrrrrs are playing a half hour slot at the Werlygig. Seemed pretty well advertised across campus, and I’m expecting quite a few friends to come and see me make a fool of myself behind the drumkit.

Next week, on the Piazza, Tuesday 2pm, Panama performs a set, and I’ll be the singer. A bit nervous about that, but it should be cool anyhow. We’ve been working toward the material we have now for quite a while.

Otherwise, making plans to go to Budapest this summer. A festival called Sziget, on an island in the middle of the Danube. It lasts for a week and there’s a surprisingly massive line-up planned actually. Franz Ferdinand, Korn, Underworld, Hives, Nick Cave and many others have one thing in common: they’ll be in Budapest at the same time I’ll be there. Check www.sziget.org for more info, as it’s really cheap as well!

: 14 Jun 2005 19:37 |  Tags: 2005 English Music |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

British Peculiarities III: Postcard Mania

Maybe this part three of the series is taking it a bit too far, but I have a feeling British people send more cards than anyone else! While back home most people are hard-pressed not to forget birthday occasions, here everyone seems loyal even to the annual Father’s Day card! What could be the reason for this?

I really can’t remember having seen three shops dedicated entirely to postcards in a row (Coventry city centre). Does anyone have an explanation so I don’t have to spend sleepless nights pondering over this subject?

: 14 Jun 2005 11:20 |  Tags: 2005 British Peculiarities English |  Comments (2) |  Close comments |  Report a problem