It is the middle of the summer holidays, Friday, 1:15 p.m. This was when we visited the Bolesławiec Cultural Centre – International Ceramics Centre to check what the city institution offers children and young people staying in Bolesławiec over the summer.
The dance rooms were closed. So was the music room. There was also no one in the open art studio. The ceramics studios on the second floor were closed as well. The only person we encountered was a young man looking after the exhibition. The entire visit lasted just a few minutes. There were no classes, instructors or groups of children and young people.
The workshop ended at 12
BOK-MCC published the programme for “Summer Kaleidoscope”, a series of summer workshops for children and young people. On Friday, July 24, from 10:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m., the “Bird Sewing: Little Pigeon” class was scheduled. When we arrived at the centre just over an hour later, there was no trace of the workshop.
A significant part of the summer schedule looks similar. On selected days, individual classes are held, usually lasting from an hour and a half to two hours. For example, art classes start at 10:00 a.m. and end at 11:30 a.m., while the Stage and Voice Academy operates from 11:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m.
This is some kind of offering, but it is difficult to call it a full summer programme that fills a substantial part of children’s day. Once the short workshops end, the rooms empty, the doors are locked, and a child who comes to the centre in the afternoon has essentially nothing to look for there.
Parents work, while children stay at home
The summer holidays are a particularly difficult period for families who cannot afford camps, frequent trips or paid day camps. Parents continue to go to work, while children have to organize their own time for many hours.
During the school year, school fills a significant part of the day. In summer, that care and daily routine disappear. This is precisely when a municipal cultural institution should be most accessible.
This is not only about organizing a single workshop that requires advance registration. An open summer space could operate for several hours a day, with instructors, games, music, art, dance, photography, film, ceramics and technical activities.
Children and young people could also come to the centre without having to plan their entire summer in advance.
PLN 15,000 for the descent from the town hall
This emptiness contrasts particularly strongly with the money BOK-MCC spends on events connected with the Bolesławiec Ceramics Festival.
In 2025, BOK-MCC paid PLN 15,000 for a performance by Bogusław Nowak, who descended on a rope from the tower of Bolesławiec town hall during the opening of the Ceramics Festival. The spectacle was short, and its execution was difficult to consider professional.
PLN 15,000 could have paid for an instructor conducting regular daily classes for a substantial part of a summer month. With proper planning, even several people could have been hired for shorter workshop cycles, creating a programme covering different interests and age groups.
And the descent from the town hall was only one of the expenses incurred in organizing the large ceramics event. This is not about giving up the Ceramics Festival. It is about the proportions and priorities of a municipal institution financed with residents’ money.
Classes fill less than one-third of the summer holiday period
We calculated the entire BOK-MCC summer programme. From July 2 to August 28, a total of 59 hours of classes were scheduled, eight of them falling on two Saturdays. From Monday to Friday, children and young people were therefore offered 51 hours of workshops. There are 42 working days in this period. If the municipal cultural centre organized classes for just four hours a day, it could provide a total of 168 hours of summer activities. The current programme therefore fills only around 30 percent of this modestly defined amount of time. As many as 117 hours are missing to provide four hours of classes on every working day. What is more, the classes are scattered throughout the calendar and usually last from one to two and a half hours. This means that on most summer days the centre offers children no activities at all, or opens its studios to them only for a short time.
Big events are visible. Daily work is less so
Large spectacles, concerts and parades look good in photos and promotional materials. They take place on stage, attract audiences and can be presented as an organizational success.
Daily work with children and young people is far less spectacular. It does not produce an impressive image from the market square. For residents, however, it may be more important than a performance lasting a few minutes during a single event.
BOK-MCC has dance, music, art and ceramics rooms. It also has facilities that most families do not. Yet in the middle of a summer day, much of this potential remains unused.
We remember the times when, during winter and summer holidays, cultural centres really did become places where young people met. You could come in, find something to do, meet others and learn something new.
Today, the municipal cultural centre offers a series of short, scattered workshops. This is better than having no activities at all, but it is decidedly less than what can be expected from the city’s largest cultural institution.