POSK AGM

 

Saturday 22nd October. The long awaited date for POSK Annual Gerneral Meeting. Will Marek Laskiewicz retain his post as Chairman of POSK? Or will the earlier treasurer Robert Wisniowski, be able to unseat him? My political support is for Robert. In fact, I am one of his ten nominees. But my money is on Marek. 

Just before I left for the meeting I received an email from Helena, confirming that she and Zaneta had had a long discussion the previous day on the remaining points of contention and she had consented to sign an amended version of the Agreement. That is great news, as Scena has got its extra fifth weekend, but in case it should want a sixth it would have to share its box office income with POSK on a 50%/50% basis. 

I turned up at 10am to collect my voting papers, both my own, and those 9 proxy votes for my friends (including Albina) lodged with the POSK office last Thursday. I walked into the main theatre for the meeting, with the swagger of a union leader at a Labour conference. The auditorium was fairly full. Marek invited Tomek Machura to chair the meeting. I had chaired the previous four AGMs, and it is a tall order, and you often face a very rowdy and difficult meeting, as Poles can get very excitable as they wrestle with tricky procedures, and play their various mind games and strategies in support of their favoured candidates. Many are adept at expressing outrage and demanding apologies, when all you had was a difference of opinoon, expressed somewhat emotionally. It is the Polish way of holding meetings which you try and control with British discipline, learned in my case from chairing Labour Party meetings or Council committees. You have to know how to treat the malcontents and the troublemakers, as well as the committed critics and the elderly ladies or gents who intervene not knowing what is going on. So you have to treat them with humour, respect and just occasionally a certain firmness, even very very occasionally raising your voice. I would ring a little bell indicating when the agreed 5 minutes was rung. For the last 2 AGMs it was more difficult as, following the covid outbreak, they were run on zoom. That was then. But this year Laskiewicz invited me again to chair the meeting. However, I thought it only fair to warn him that I was nominating Robert, and he hastily withdrew the offer. Now young cocky Tomek Machura has got the honour and did not even bother to thank the meeting for allowing him to take the chair. He has a lot to learn.

The meeting began with a query from me regarding the order of the proposed agenda. The agenda showed an agenda item to elect POSK Council memebers before the discussion over the Chairman's report. I urged that this be reversed so that the businees to do with the past can be dealt with first. It also allows the scrutineer committee members to participate in the debate, and younger new council candidates to have their say before we vote for them. My intevention caused the first acrimonoius debate as the former hard core ex directors came in behind me, while Laskiewicz and younger members of the meeting argued to keep the proposed order, as it would make the meeting shorter. The final vote was 65 in favour of keeping to the proposed agenda as printed and 54 in favour of my motion. That vote alone indicated to me that, at the end of the day, the Laskiewicz faction would win the vote for the chair and for many of the Council seats.

Then, after the Chairman's report there was a further acrimonious row over the fact that the meeting could not receive the Annual Report and Financial Statements for the previous year because the Auditors had not signed them. It was an important legal point. Laskiewicz explained that the lack of a signature was due to the auditors being late in sending back the report after asking for changes to the number of POSK directors, so that the report we had been sent within the statutory 45 days before the meeting was incomplete. This row lasted nearly half an hour as the toxic acrimony pervaded even the brick walls of the theatre. 

The extended process of voting for the 35 candidates for 24 council places began. One third of all 51 council seats fall vacant every year on a rotation basis, but this year there had been a large number of vacancies because so few candidates came forward at the AGM last year. Hence there were more than the usual 17 seats to fill. I had been successfully re-elected last year so I remain on the Council. However, with this new large intake and exceptionally high number of candidates invited to stand by the Chairman, it was obvious that the bulk of those elected would be from his faction. The ballot boxes were placed on the stage, POSK members queued up to vote, and I happily joined them to stuff my 10 ballot papers into the box. 

The debate on the Chairman's report that followed, the one that I had argued should have taken place before the voting, was lively but proceeded in an orderly fashion. However, it was prolonged because each question, or statement, was answered by Marek or one of the other Directors, so the flow of debate was hampered and comments became repetitive. Again, when I chaired these meetings, I normally prepared the list of would be speakers and every 10 comments from the audience would be followed by relevant responses from the directors. It was much faster and more orderly that way. 

I took this occasion to ask a question about their current high number of office vacancies and made a statement about the situation in the theatre in order to update POSK members as to what happened to last year's AGM resolution. I pointed out that there was still no sign outside the buidling indicating that the building housed a theatre, the serious ventilation problems in the theatre remain, as well problems with heating, and the four weekends of free use of the theatre by Scena Polska, which the resolution had promised to increase, was reduced in practice to just one weekend, because of the inane way the Director responsible for culture had managed the theatre bookings. Scena Polska, the resident theatre company, had to put on plays at other venues, in London and in Bristol and Corby. However, I pointed out however that, thanks to Zuzanna Brudzinska, appointed by Marek to run the culture section in July, the situation changed, a new agrrement had been drawn up, the final points had been agreed, literally, the day before, and now awaited the Director's approval and signature. Scena Polska had five weekend dates confirmed for next year and the offer of a number od Sundays in the former jazz cafe in the basement. My contribution was basically an initial slap in the face of the POSK board, and then a pat on the back for them eventually hiring the right person to resolve the problem. It pleased neither the new POSK executive, not the hardcore elements of the earlier one. It particularly displeased the former culture director who had made such a hash this year and whom Marek Laskiewicz eventually ditched. I had deliberately not mentioned his name to spare his blushes, but Bogdan Becla weighed in on the basis of "if the cap fits, wear it". He complained that I had ignored him, that the theatre company was greedy all the time for handouts, and that he could not work out whether I was speaking for Scena or for POSK. For both, I assured him. I set the record straight on his comments and gave more details of the two-way mutual financial agreement between the theatre company and POSK.

We finally got to the end of Any Other Business and still waited for the Council election results. They finally came in after 3 hours, at 3pm. As I expected most of the new seats went to the newer younger members who had been invited to stand by Laskiewicz. I ams sure most of them will be a good new acquisition for POSK. Old hands like Jolanta Sabbat, the late President's daughter, came through, as well my friend on the Federation of Poles executive, Monika Tkaczyk, who barely got through with 190 votes. Some like Krysia Bell, who runs the Children's theatre or Marcin Zaremba, who created the current very arbitrary Articles of Association, did not get through. They were indentified with the hard core opposition, who had been part of the old unpopular Executive.. That was unfortunate. 

This was followed by the election of the Chairman. The meeting was tired and worn out  by this time and they rejected any pleas for last minute presentations by the two candidates. That was outrageous, but then most participants were desperate to go home. The final result came at around 5pm. Laskiewicz - 278 votes; Wisniowski - 165. It was a complete and total victory that sealed his surprise victory last year. With a much more friendly Council membership, he may have an easier time of it next year, but hopefully he will avoid this year's mistakes, and now ,having a wider field to choose from, he may be able to appoint better qualified directors. The POSK secretary, who does not believe in the existence of covid-19, is a total liability, but he is loyal to Laskiewicz and will probably remain. The treasurer should also go. 

This election result confirms a generational leap, as well as a switch to a larger proportion of Council members being born in Poland, rather than in England, with their Polish mannersims, and their viewing  England as a foreign country in which they live out of their choice, and not out of their parents' necessity, as was true of us Anglo-Poles. You can see the contrast, for instance, in attitudes to UK politcial correctness, to methods of speaking, to meeting procedures and to the somewhat superior quality of their Polish, as well as in their somewhat more conservative, even nationalist, profile. This trend will be worth examining, as it reflects so much in what is happening in Polish parishes and saturday schools around the country. The old bastions of the Anglo-Poles are falling. 

After the meeting I sent Marek a congatulatory email, but suggested he should broaden his next Board of Directors, and invite some from the old guard: I also commiserated with Robert and mentioned my suggestions to Marek. Robert replied with a thank you "you win some, you lose some", but left the impression that he could serve in a new Board, if Marek suggested it. I wonder.