Museum News
(Rich Kujawa)
SEPTEMBER 2, 2010
As I have previously noted, the Museum has been blessed
recently with some unique and wonderful volunteers. We have been
able to accomplish so many things due to their talent and
effort. We have been so pleased to see them advance in their
personal and professional lives. The latest to receive our
Cheers and Congratulations! is volunteer Sean Ciolek who has
recently accepted a position as Architect/ Project Manager for
the City of Evanston. We wish him all the best! Sean's plans for
the renovated 4th floor Art Gallery will be unveiled in November
at the Life-Members Benefit.
The Museum has faced very difficult circumstances this year. We
have not only weathered the storms but have made very significant
progress thanks to the efforts of Staff and volunteers.
Finally, there will be a new look to this and our Home page next
week thanks to the efforts of "remote" volunteer David Majkowski!
Thank you David!
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AUGUST 31, 2010
Pretty typical August. Very busy the 16th thru the 22nd, then very
slow after. The Museum attended the first International Day at the
Wheeling Indian Trails Public Library. A very nice event! Attendance was
not bad for an inaugural event. However, the high heat and humidity on
Sunday made set-up and tear-down very unpleasant.
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AUGUST 17, 2010
Back from vacation. The PRCUA convention last week brought new
officers and some good news. Traditionally, the President and
Resident Vice President of the PRCUA are elected by the Museum's board
of directors to be Chairman and Vice Chair of the board so this is a
significant change for us. Also, the PRCUA's Budget Committee
agreed to grant us a new annual stipend. This is certainly welcome
news.
We have experience a surprising jump in the number of visitors this
month. Even though tour group traffic is down for this year, we do
expect to have at least as many visitors as last year.
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AUGUST 4, 2010
April Announcements and News have been
archived. I am determined to keep the download times for these two
pages as short as possible.
We hope to have a PayPal "button" on the
website in early September. The Museum's account has been
established and David is working on the "button." Once installed,
we hope that visitors will use this quick and easy way to make donations
to the Museum.
The quadrennial convention of the PRCUA, our landlords,
officially begins on Sunday, August 8. We will have an open house
for the delegates on Saturday, August 7 from 4:00 until 8:00.
Crews have been very busy this week and last making the building look
good. We hope with the improving economy they will be able to
increase their support of the Museum.
I will be on vacation next week so there will be no news updates until the following week.
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JULY 29, 2010
A new central light has been installed in the Great Hall of the
Museum replacing a fixture more than twenty years old. Some photos
below. Also, a sneak preview of the new exhibit opening tomorrow.
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Art waiting to be mounted
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The new light is VERY bright!
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1st quarter 2010 News and Announcements have been
archived.
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JULY 26, 2010
A few weeks ago a visitor commented that the Museum's website does not
give a visitor a good idea of what to expect, specifically the size and
scope of the Museum was not obvious. We do listen to comments!
This morning I added a gallery of photos to the Paderewski exhibit
section. In future I will be adding more photos of the other
exhibits. If you have comments please send them to the address at
the upper right corner of this page.
The Main Hall of the Museum will be
partially closed July 27 in order to replace a failing central light
fixture. We hope to keep the closure time as short as possible.
A new section of 'Frequently Asked
Questions' has been added to the "Visit Us" page.
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JULY 14, 2010
Tuesday, Jan and I attended the final review of the report on climate
change for the Chicago Department of Energy produced by the ECCo
Department of the Field Museum. This is a study of attitudes about
climate change within the Polish-American community. Rich served
as advisor throughout the project (February to July) and Jan was an
official advisor for the past month. The report is a wonderful
piece of work and the Museum is very proud to have played a role in its
creation. A summary of the results will be available here in about
a month. It will be publically presented for the first time at the
Field Museum to the Green Build Convention which is holding its annual
conference in Chicago in November. The Museum will host the Polish
Green Build banquet on November 19. Below are a couple of photos I
took from the north entrance to the Field Museum prior to the meeting.
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Skyline from Hancock North
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Navy Pier
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JULY 1, 2010
On June 19 Rich presented his lecture on Polish Immigration to the NW
Indiana Genealogical Society. On June 21 a television video crew
was in the Paderewski Room taking video and photographs for a
documentary on Paderewski to be aired in Poland in November. Some
photos of both events are posted below along with a couple of photos of
Jack Vishneski, one of our Summer interns.
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JUNE 30, 2010
A revision to the website's format is now in progress. David
and I have realized that there are a number of pages that need to be
posted that don't easily fit into the categories found in the current
left-side navigation menu. For example, the Neighborhood Stories
page doesn't really fit into any of the current navigation selections.
What is planned is to create a new separate selection menu on the right
which will allow the visitor to select a special project link. If
any visitors have other ideas or if you would like to participate in a
beta test, please send an email to the address in the header bar.
Also, look for new donation options in the near future.
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JUNE 16, 2010
In collaboration with the Field Museum and the Chicago Cultural
Alliance, the Museum is offering a free visit to the Field Museum on
Thursday, July 15 at 10:00 am. There will be a special group
viewing of a new exhibit at the Field Museum followed by a group
discussion of the exhibit. Afterwards, participants may view other
exhibits at the Field Museum without charge. For information click
here. Reservations are
required by July 12!
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JUNE 14, 2010
For the past several months volunteer Sean Ciolek and Rich have been
involved with personnel from the ECCo department of The Field Museum
researching Chicago's Polish Community attitudes towards the issue of
climate change. We are scheduled to have one final focus group
meeting on June 22 with selected community leaders. A rough draft
of the final report will be reviewed on July 1. For more
information please go to:
http://www.fieldmuseum.org/ccuc/ccuc_sites/Climate_Action/climate_action.htm
Additionally, Lisa Terlecki, Sean Ciolek and Rich have been working
on a dialog project with the American Indian Center and The Field
museum. The dialogue will take place at The Field Museum in the
latter part of July. If you are interested in participating,
please send an email to the address in the header of this page.
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JUNE 14, 2010
Schoolgroup visit on June 11, 2010:
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JUNE 11, 2010
Szanowni Państwo,
odnalazłem wczoraj poważną pomyłkę na naszej stronie internetowej.
Linki prowadzące do nowej polskiej wersji strony internetowej miały
zostać zmienione 2 marca. Na nieszczęście tak się nie stało i
niedopatrzenie to odkryłem dopiero wczoraj. Wszystkie linki
prowadzące do polskiej wersji strony wiodą do
polskiej strony
głównej. Zdaję
sobie sprawę, iż niektórzy z odwiedzających nas gości byli
zawiedzeni faktem, że polska wersja naszej strony internetowej była
pomijana i nieuaktualniana. W rzeczywistości, wspólnie z Davidem, regularnie
ją uaktualnialiśmy. Jednakże dlatego, że linki prowadziły do starej
wersji v3, która nie była uaktualniana po połowie lutego - nasi
goście nie mogli dostać się do nowej, uaktualnionej strony. Jestem
bardzo poruszony tym faktem i nie mam żadnego usprawiedliwienia.
Żadne z uspawiedliwień bowiem nie jest do przyjęcia. Bardzo
przepraszam naszych polskojęzycznych gości.
Dziękuję za zrozumienie,
Rich Kujawa
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JUNE 10, 2010
I found a very bad mistake on the website yesterday. The links
to the new Polish version of the website were to have been updated on
March 2 of this year. Unfortunately, that did not happen and this
oversight was not discovered until yesterday. All Polish version
links now take the user to the new, updated,
Polish Home page.
Some of our users may have become very frustrated that it appeared the
Polish version of the website was being totally ignored and not updated.
In fact, it was being updated regularly by both David and me. But
because the links took the user to the old version, v3, which was not
updated after mid-February, the user could not get to the new updated
page. I am really embarrassed about this and will offer no
excuses. No excuse could be acceptable. I am very sorry to
our Polish language users.
Rich Kujawa
As of this writing, we have over 200
reservations for the Summer Ball! We are deeply grateful to the
community for their support. Thank you so much!
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MAY 24, 2010
We certainly have been busy! The pianola recital on May16 went
very well. Monday and Tuesday found several staff in meetings and
workshops relative to projects with the Field Museum. Friday Rich
was at Wheeling High School for their annual diversity day program.
Here are links to photos from both events:
Pianola | Wheeling
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MAY 13, 2010
The Pianola recital is on schedule for Sunday,
May 16 at 2:00. VIP seating is now closed. About 50 people
have guaranteed, reserved general seating. The high number of
early reserved seats indicates that this could be a sell-out performance
and general seating is limited to 250. Tickets are $15 per person
and will be available at the door until we reach capacity.
The last event of this type was in 1985 at Orchestra Hall with the Chicago
Symphony Youth Orchestra. This event will be a recital and only
the 1925 Steinway reproducing piano will be used. The piano rolls
that will be used are copies of rolls made by Paderewski, mostly after
World War I.
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MAY 12, 2010
The Polish Club from Wheeling High School visited on May 11, 2010. I will be at the school on May 21
for their diversity day event. These are a great bunch of people with a lot of enthusiasm for Polish culture.
Here are some photos of the diversity event last year.
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MAY 11, 2010
Two high school groups visited the Museum over the past several days. I think the students found their visit worthwhile.
Rex Lawson and Denis Hall in conversation with Elaine Coorens in the Paderewski Room.
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Left to right: Elaine Coorens, Denis Hall, Rex Lawson
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MAY 4, 2010
The Constitution Day Parade was very successful. Our float,
keying off the Chopin theme, had a piano with good friend Jeff Wagner
imitating Paderewski at the keyboard and was well received. I
expect to have photos posted later this week. Because of the
tragedy of April 10, the press was unusually attentive to this year's
parade.
Now that the parade is over, I'm seeing fewer Polish flags on
autos around town. Life returns to "normal" and goes on.
We're now in final preparation for the upcoming Pianola recital. Rex and
Denis arrive this morning. The 24 VIP seats are now 50% filled.
General seating reservations are coming in slowly but expected to speed
up this week.
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