AndrzejProkeszCAS

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Our clothing catalog

As the catalog is now available online, I decided to publish it here as well. Enjoy!

Link here

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RazemPamoja auction update - Creativity&Service /16 April 2018

This weekend I went to the Ujazdowki Castle in Warsaw, where the RazemPamoja charity auction will take place. Together with the director of the foundation, Bartosz Przybył-Ołowski, we first unpacked the lots, checked if all are present and undamaged and then conceptualized how to arrange them in the space available. We settled for a ‘flat amphitheater’ arrangement - the viewers/ bidders were to sit in a semi-circle in front of the auction lots and the auctioneer, with architectural models by Maciej Siuda between them. When we agreed on the specific arrangement of all the works, Bartosz left to attend a meeting concerning the catalog and left me to supervise the works on the site. After some 6 hours spent on arranging and hanging the works, we were left with just 3 pieces still to place out of the 45 lots. With 9 days remaining to the event, I am confident that we will be able to overcome the technical problems and eventually place them as well.

Bartosz also asked me, Franek and Iza Zydorowicz (another high-schooler involved in the project in a similar capacity to ours) to co-host the event - we would be tasked with auctioning some of the lots and one of us would make a short speech. While Franek and Iza joyfully agreed, I am reluctant to this idea - having attended more auctions than my peers and knowing the art market more in general, I am afraid that the bidders may become rather irritated with the idea and confused with the shifts in narration. Furthermore, while Franek proved himself to be a capable auctioneer at our school auction, I am afraid that at an event potentially yielding 10 or 20 times as much in donations all of us may become exceedingly nervous. I presented my points to Bartosz but, for now, he is quite adamant - he believes that this will introduce a less serious atmosphere and that some people may over-bid because of appreciating the relaxed and inclusive nature of the foundation’s workings.

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RazemPamoja book meeting - creativity and service /March 27th, 2019

Today I attended another book-related event, this time organized wholly by Franek. Some 55 people were present, quite a good result for a middle-ot-the-week meeting. We sold some 20 books and 5 photographs by Agata Grzybowska, contributing to two full scholarships in Kenya.

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Swimming - activity /March 17th, 2019

Today I went swimming in the 50-meter pool again. This time a swam a full 2km and had no strength for the sauna this time. Finally, I see that I am returning to my previous swimming form again - though previously 2km was my maximum as I was much younger and weaker, my technique used to be much better.

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Another “Anyway the Kite Goes” meeting - creativity and service /March 14th, 2019

Tomorrow I am going to the Batory highschool, another International Baccalaureate school in the district of Powiśle. Apart from promoting our book and thus supporting scholarships, I also hope to meet somebody interested in working with the foundation next year, as I will be soon departing to study abroad and won’t be able to support RazemPamoja in Warsaw.

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Swimming - activity /March 10th, 2019

Today I went swimming again, this time instead of our local 25-meter pool to the 50-meter one closer to the city center. I swam 1.6km, though this was significantly more difficult to me than doing the same distance in a shorter pool. 

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“Anyway the Kite Goes” Book Lunch - creativity and service /March 7th, 2019

Yesterday I co-hosted an event surrounding the book that I have written with my colleagues. About 70 people attended, to whom I am very thankful! We managed to sell some 55 books, contributing to a full (including housing, an allowance for food and such expenses and, mainly, the school fees) for one student in Kenya. I am very invigorated by this score - while many of the workings at the book were tiresome and quite difficult to manage with the normal school proceedings taking place, at least the organization of the meetings and subsequent fundraising seems rather effortless. Below you can see some pictures from the event, courtesy of Bartosz Przybył-Ołowski.

(from the left) Marcin Krupowicz (Thank you for helping us out!), Andrzej Prokesz, Franek Bielowicki, Agata Grzybowska, Bartosz Przybył-Ołowski

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Swimming and sauna - activity /March 1st, 2019

Today I went swimming again - I swam 1.5km and then went to the sauna for 3*10 minutes. While I am not a fan of swimming (in chlorine pools, at least), I absolutely love going to the sauna. Most people disregard this activity, saying that it is just a form of relaxation, but the effect on one’s circulatory system is just amazing.

There is some benefit to not having the first two lessons canceled - otherwise, I wouldn’t have time for that :)

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Book Lunch preparations - creativity and service /March 1st, 2019

Currently, I am organizing a ‘book lunch’ at our school. The event is scheduled to take place on the 6th of March (previously the 11th, but we decided to hold it earlier on). I tasked myself with talking to the two teachers to whom we have given the book and asking them about some ideas/ threads that we should discuss during the meeting with our students - we don’t want to simply give a collective lecture on the subject, I hope that we will be able to interact with our audience. Hopefully, Bartosz’s charisma will also help us - as a former teacher, I believe that he will spark some interest in our colleagues’ minds.

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Swimming - activity /February 19th, 2019

Today I went swimming, for the first time in almost a year. Swimming was never my favorite activity - I hate the smell of chlorine that is inherent to it, the omnipresent schoolchildren that are obliged to attend though they have no such wish. But, as now I am forced to go in the early morning hours (before school), the activity gets more bearable as there are fewer people and it gives me a good feeling for the rest of the day. Today I swam 1.2km, significantly less than I used to, but a good warm-up for the upcoming weeks.

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RazemPamoja book promotion - creativity and service /February 14th, 2019

Today I met up with Franek, Marta, and Iza to talk about promoting our book. Marta is already working on organizing a ‘book lunch’ in her school which will take place in early March, and I resolved with Franek that we will hold one in our school on March 11th (first date when Franek, Bartosz Przybył Ołowski, Agata Grzybowska and I are available in Warsaw). In the meantime, we will give copies of the book to two of our teachers and ask them to participate in the discussion with us - I believe that having an outside opinion on our product will be beneficial as we could ourselves get into too many details that won’t be understandable to our audience. 

Also, I received information that the project for which I was fundraising during the last school year is now almost complete - the works at the educational space in Mathare are pretty much done now (some pictures below, courtesy of Bartosz Przybył-Ołowski). I hope that now Bartosz will find some time to give the book to our Kenyan interlocutors and that we will receive some ‘feedback’.

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Skiing license exam - activity /February 9th, 2019

Today I passed the skiing exam for my license. Now, I am qualified to teach skiing, both individually and in groups, both in Poland and abroad (well, I still need to get my plastic ID card certifying this, but this is just a formality). The course turned out to be easier than I expected; I scored very good marks on the parts of the exam related to this years’ part and much poorer (but still sufficient) on the ones that I studied a year ago. Certainly, the fact that this was my only skiing trip this year didn’t help me with the more technical parts - sometimes I was under the impression that it was only due to prior experiences, not my teaching at the courses, that I didn’t fail.

Now, having completed this feat, I am much less concentrated on anything related to activity and my actions related to this strand of CAS will probably get more spontaneous. As my father ran up into some problems with his left leg, I will likely start going to the swimming pool with him instead of roller skiing, as the latter requires having a car and getting to somewhere safe/ quiet.

In this link you can find the certification that I have completed the exam (It's in Polish but you probably can notice the download link as it is the only one on the page).

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Skiing intructor license update - activity /February 3rd, 2019

Today I traveled to Zieleniec, a ski resort in the Sudety mountains in Poland for the final part of my skiing instructor’s license. The course will take 5 days and on the next Saturday I will undergo a final exam. I hope that the last month during which I visited the gym a couple times will help me compensate for the lack of skiing this season. Luckily, much of this part of the course consists of racing practice, so I hope to compensate for my physical lacks with my experience acquired throughout the previous years.

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Skiing preparations - activity /January 23rd, 2018

This week I went to the gym twice to do some training before my skiing trip that will take place in early February. I concentrated on legs muscles and stamina as these two are crucial for efficient and safe skiing. Although I do see some progress in my performance in each consecutive training, I am wary that I will not be in my best condition for the upcoming skiing, especially in comparison to my last year’s training regime :/ Anyway, some practice is better than none, and I hope to visit the gym a couple more times before the expedition.

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RazemPamoja update - creativity and service /02 January 2019

Today was the first day back in school for me this year and I wanted to write a short update on our RazemPamoja-relate actions that we have undertaken during the Christmas break. Unfortunately, we are just receiving our book that we were sending to print almost a month ago - it turned out that our printing company was too busy in the runup to the pre-festivities sales season and they weren’t able to print our book in the time that we imagined that they need. This, unfortunately, means that we were not able to sell our product in the probably most efficient time. Regardless, we will start promoting our book shortly - we plan to first sell a couple of them to our closest colleagues and then organize some talks about them. I expect that the first ones will happen in early February.

Soon, Bartosz Przybył-Ołowski, the president of our foundation will be going to Kenya with Maciej Siuda, the aforementioned architect,  to supervise the construction of the educational space that we were fundraising for earlier on. The time that has past since our fundraiser wasn’t wasted though - after our journey to Kenya there have been some more consultations with the youth of Mathare as to their expectations regarding the design, and Maciej redesigned his initial plans to accommodate their opinion. Furthermore, the permission of the local authorities was granted for the project to start.

Fortunately, selling our clothes goes much better - we sold pretty much everything that we had in stock in Poland, and the cooperative is now working on new deliveries to us, which should arrive in late February. Until then, we will be taking orders though, with the clause that the delivery will happen later than they happened until now. 

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Table tennis - activity /December 20th, 2018

Today I played table tennis with Kacper, possibly for the last time this year. I have seen amazing progress in my skills - in everything ranging from my movement next to the table while playing to my coordination with some more difficult shots. Also, I am very thankful for Kacper’s patience with me - I honestly didn’t expect that we will be able to continue our training for such a long time and that he will bring me to such a level.

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RazemPamoja clothes update - service and creativity /December 14th, 2018

Tomorrow is the day that the article in “Wysokie Obcasy” will be published. By now we managed to sell and deliver some 20 tracksuits, 20 jackets and we have at least as many other orders. I hope that after the publication of tomorrow’s article we will sell everything else that we have and we are already in contact with the cooperative to start working on our project again (in the meantime they were producing some other products). We are now preparing some Facebook and Instagram posts that we will be publishing in the days following.