A contentious POSK Council meeting

 

The day following the signing we had a meeting of the new POSK Council, which had been elected at the AGM last month. I met Zaneta before the meeting and she told me her version of the dispute, but she, like Krysia, had spent the last week in tears over this conflict. 

Before the meeting I had a pre-planned interview withe a TVP camera crew talking about the prospects of the war in Ukraine. I considered that it would continue until next year as I had no doubt about the detrmination of the Ukrainians and of the U.S., U.K. and Polish governments to continue to resist Russian aggression. I did not expect too many changes in Moscow as the only likely change currently would be a coup by Prigozhin and his Wagner group, but I doubt if the Russian army would stomach that. In any case, Prigozhin could be even worse, though he is basically a brutal and cynical gangster, and is not driven so much by a warped ideology like Putin. My concern was the flaky opinion polls on the war on sanctions in Italy and Germany. I also used this interview to urge the Polish government to cut short its "second war" with the EU and Germany, and concentrate on building up European solidarity. Probably those last remarks will be removed by the TVP programme editors. After all, this was the Polish state televison and an objective assessment of Polish politics is not in their DNA. 

Because of that interview I came in late to the meeting. There was a storm brewing already with the former POSK directors still picking holes over the minutes and the lack of proper financial reports. At one stage one of the participants anounced that she had been personally insulted and stormed out of the room. A number of people were asked to go after her and bring her back, and she was oferred an apology. Then the issue between Joanna (Krysia was no longer a Council memeber) and Zaneta blew up in a mighty conflagration as Joanna stated that Zaneta, who was in charge of Culture, would have no access to anything the children's theatre does and they could ask the police to enforce this. Council members listened in astonishment. After both ladies had spoken, the chairman stopped further discussion and said he would have a meeting with both parties. Certainly a mediator would be advisable as it would be a pity for POSK to lose both parties and a calming mediation may be the only solution. Emotionally they are not yet ready for that. At the end of the meeting Marek announced the names of the new Directors. Not everyone was my cup of tea, but the importane thing is that the old Secretary and Treasurer no longer hold those posts. In fact the new Secretary is Monika Tkaczyk from the Federation of Poles, and that is somebody I am happy to work with. 

Also Marek announced that I would continue to be the POSK representative with the Federation of Poles in Great Britain. Maybe so, but I had warned that I would do nothing more after the Federation's January AGM.