(noted during the October session of the Municipal Council)
The matters dealt with by councillors during the October session of the Municipal Council included information on the activities of the Bolesławiec Cultural Centre, the Municipal Public Library and the Museum of Ceramics since January 1992. Below we present an extract of the more important numerical data from this information.
Bolesławiec Cultural Centre
It brings together around 200 permanent members in 12 amateur artistic groups and twice as many people in a dozen or so different types of sections, clubs, foreign-language courses, dance courses, etc.
The largest and most “official” group is the “Bolesławiec” Song and Dance Ensemble. Most of the youth music groups gathered under the hospitable roof of the BOK, but there are also dance groups, active visual-arts groups and even an unusual shanty vocal group for a town located 500 km from the sea.
A total of 45 artistic events took place on the stage of the “Forum” hall and at the “Pegaz” club, including at least 9 theatrical performances (unfortunately, only for children and young people) and 7 cabaret performances (including the “Otto” and “Paka” cabarets, as well as cabaret evenings featuring such renowned performers as K. Daukszewicz, B. Smoleń and J. Fedorowicz). St. Sojka, M. Grechuta and E. Geppert visited our town. Well-known professional Polish groups (“Wilki”, “Ham-mer”, “Kaczki z nowej paczki”) and amateur vocal and instrumental groups performed here many times.
Unfortunately, neither the town chronicle nor that of the BOK recorded a single symphony or classical-music concert. The students of the School of Music and the Music Centre came to the rescue several times, and they deserve praise for it.
Vernissages at the BOK Gallery, often combined with meetings with artists, were attended by around 1,400 viewers and listeners. There were 20 exhibitions (ceramics, graphic art, painting, photography and glass), including the Post-Competition Exhibition of the National Ceramic Sculpture Open-Air Workshop, the graphic-art exhibition by Rafał Strent from Warsaw and the Community Exhibition of Bolesławiec Artists.
The “Pegaz” club hosted more than 50 different events, predominantly entertainment and dance events. These included the Regional Qualifying Round of the National Recitation Competition, the Qualifying Round of the French Song Festival, recitals and chamber concerts, events for children such as “Minilista przebojów” and “Ściąga”, visual-arts classes as part of the Little Academy of Imagination, competitions, tournaments, computer fairs and other activities. Around 3,500 participants took part in the club’s events.
The town’s residents will certainly remember the outdoor and occasional events organised by the BOK: the May picnic featuring 18 groups; “Bolesławiec Spring”, with a carnival parade and a Kite Festival; the Mystery of the Rain Theatre; and a motoring rally leisure event.
During the winter holidays, school students could take advantage of a special programme called “Holidays without Boredom”, while before the summer holidays the BOK invited young people to an attractive outdoor event called “Welcome, Holidays”.
There were also programmes during the summer holidays themselves, the most impressive of which was “Blues nad Bobrem”, with workshops. It is worth recalling that the BOK shouldered the main organisational burden during the National Ceramic-Sculpture Open-Air Workshop, followed immediately afterwards by a concert on the occasion of Polish Independence Day.
“Day of Bosnian Children” – a humanitarian event lasting many hours – was the last major event we managed to record before sending the material to print.
Perhaps not all of the BOK’s activities were recorded, but probably the most important ones were. It may also be added that the only currently operating cinema in the town, run by the BOK, has screened nearly 100 film titles since January, with – unfortunately – rather low attendance. (Perhaps because of the excess of American films?).
Municipal Public Library
The current collection comprises 99,926 volumes, including 3,030 audiovisual items. Thus, the municipal library has just under one hundred thousand books, or slightly more than two for every statistical resident of the town.
There are 7,728 readers, half of whom are registered in the children’s and youth department. This figure represents around 20 percent of the total number of town residents who read. On average, 96 people visit the library each day. Slightly more—115 readers—come to the children’s and youth department daily.
How do we read? It turns out: not very much and slowly. The number of loans per 100 residents is 346 volumes (the national average is 379, while in the Jelenia Góra Voivodeship the average is 419 loans per 100 residents).
This year, more than 3,500 volumes were purchased for 89 million zlotys. The amount seems impressive, but it should be noted that the average price of a book this year reached 23,700. The collection-purchase standard set by the Ministry of Culture and Art is 18 volumes per 100 residents. In Bolesławiec, the statistical figure is 10.9 volumes (in the Jelenia Góra Voivodeship it is 11.2, while the national figure is 10.8 volumes).
After more than 45 years of waiting for a suitable facility (on two occasions, completed designs for a new MBP building were shelved during successive economic crises, while the MBP continues to operate in temporary premises at various locations around the town), the Municipal Public Library may perhaps have its own building by the middle of next year. It is to be the former nursery building on Sądowa Street. The town authorities showed great understanding and goodwill by allocating a total of 1,250,000,000 zlotys for adapting the building. The new facility will house the adult lending library from Kaszubska Street, the reading room from Kubika Street, and the children’s and youth department. An Audiovisual Collections Department will also be opened there, including an audiobook collection and a video-cassette lending service. We will write more about the new MBP facility next year.
Museum of Ceramics
In June this year, the Museum of Ceramics in Bolesławiec marked 25 years of activity. (The first museum in this town was actually established as early as 1908, but none of the old collections survived. After the war, the museum in Bolesławiec opened in the 1950s, but the building was soon assigned for renovation. In practice, therefore, the museum has operated since June 1967).
This year, the Museum is displaying three permanent exhibitions:
- Bolesławiec Stoneware from the 17th Century to the Present
- Bolesławiec Ceramic-Sculpture Open-Air Workshops,
- European Ceramics, and has displayed seven temporary exhibitions (Paintings by Jolanta Ajlikow-Czarnecka, Acquisitions of the Museum of Ceramics 1982?02, Passion Scenes in Glass Painting from the collections of the Regional Museum in Jelenia Góra, The Dead Oblige the Living: the Home Army in Photography and Documentation, Selected Collections of Artistic Ceramics from the Collections of the Museum of Ceramics, Paintings by Maria Polakowska-Prokopiak, and Etchings by Krzysztof Skórczewski from the collections of the Regional Museum in Legnica).
The Museum has more than 2,700 exhibits (at the very beginning, there were not even 10). The library contains 2,977 volumes. Mrs Barbara Alaszewska from London donated a considerable number of valuable ceramics publications to the Museum after visiting it. The Museum systematically receives publications from the Museum of Ceramics in Düsseldorf and the museum in Karlsruhe.
The Museum is currently preparing exhibits of contemporary ceramic sculpture for an exhibition in Pirna, where the Museum will open in January.
It is also worth mentioning that Bożena Kantek of the Museum of Ceramics recently returned from Lienz (Tyrol, Austria), where she delivered a paper on the connections between Bolesławiec ceramics and the ceramics of other centres.
The paper aroused great interest among the symposium participants, and the symposium was organised by the University of Innsbruck.
Over the course of ten months, 4,500 people visited the Museum of Ceramics, including more than 2,000 in organised groups. Admission prices to the Museum of Ceramics were 5,000 zlotys for a regular ticket, 2,000 for a reduced ticket and 1,000 for an excursion ticket.
Admission to the Museum is free every Thursday.
Renovation and adaptation work is under way on the building formerly occupied by the Kutuzov Museum. This building will house a department devoted to the history of the town, and it is not ruled out that one of the rooms will contain a memento of Kutuzov. Mrs Teresa Wolanin, MA, director of the Museum of Ceramics, is taking this opportunity to appeal to town residents to donate photographs or artefacts of museum and historical value to the Museum.