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Thank you for your support in 2015
I would like to use this opportunity to say thank you for the support you have all given me in 2015. I would also like to say a special thank you to the few people who played a very important role in my life this year.
Dawid, my son – as every year I have learned so much from you. You know this world much better than I do but this year I have seen you overcome all those pre-teen insecurities with such grace and patience that I wish I was like you. I am not, but I am learning. Your almost stubborn need to ‘get it all right’ and be the best at everything really overwhelms me sometimes and I am not sure how to tell you to slow down. Actually, maybe you are right. Maybe we should not slow down? I cannot wait to see what 2016 is going to bring for you – you will be 10, you’ll start walking home from school and manage your own friendships, little secrets and school reality even better. I feel your life speeding up so much that I had to start writing up all our moments now. 2015 for me was a year of remembering your first ten years of life, a nice way of preparing for the next decade. Thank you for sharing it with me. Thank you for understanding when I am tired, upset and impatient. Thank you for the hugs, for love, for evening giggles every single night.
Dan, my husband – I know it was a very hard year for you, so much happening at work and at home. Still, at the end of the day, you’d come home and help me with that one line of code…or two…or two hours of coding in fact. ‘Always happy to help’ – I really don’t know how and why you have so much patience for me. You are my rock. Thank you.
Linda – you are such a wonderful friend, I have no words to describe the impact you had on me this year. My friend, my mentor, my honest adviser, my inspiration. I want to be like you when I grow up so I am so so so lucky to share the now with you. You are always one step ahead, so calm and so supportive. Always finding the right words and the right silence. You make me feel calmer and more confident in my goals – you make me regain the faith in the vision I have allowed myself to forget. Thank you.
Krysia – my angel. Your kid words. Your humility. Your patience. Your attitude towards life and the challenges it throws at you is just so inspiring. I always have to correct my views after I talk to you – you simply bring the best out of me. The quiet. The introvert. Also the happy. The adventurous. Thank you.
Kath, Enas and Dana – dear lovely mums who help me manage Dawid’s personal life but also support me on my journey of motherhood. You all understand the challenges of raising a child and running my own business, building a new life and so much more at the same time. Thank you for being so extraordinary – you are all my superheroes. Thank you.
Sarah – thank you for your gift of listening and for the gift of gifts – your book (you said it was a simple present) meant so much to me. You know sometimes little things matter the most. You have shown me another side of me and made me realise that there are women out there who share my passion for my own space. It had a great impact on my confidence in 2015. Thank you so so much!
Gabriela – you are my hero. I really look up to you. Your patience and your kindness inspire me so much. I am glad that we have worked together in 2015 and cannot wait to see what 2016 might bring. Thank you.
Graeme – thank you for believing in my vision for the Pixel Club and for owning it in your very own, personal way. Thank you for making time to discuss its future and for helping me see the kid inside of me too. Thank you.
Ildiko, Zoee and Jodie – thank you for giving me the family I thought I’d never have. You are my little miracles. Thank you.
Dale – it’s funny how social media algorithms helped me discover your work just when I really needed a new mentor in the area of startups. You are exactly the push I need at the moment and thanks to you I could accept the fact that my work at SylwiaPresley.com, at Minecraft Club and Wantage Summer Festival is not done yet. I had to review my plans for the next few years but in a good way – my vision solidified and I have found the language and the tools to explain it to my friends and engage them in my vision. Thank you.
I have come along way in changing my habits and adjusting my life to the new life – a life of peace, gratefulness and hope. I had to say goodbye to many friends who were courageous but also abrupt and very often lost in their ways – my new ways did not agree with theirs. I spent a lot of time in 2014 reviewing my ways and finding new paths so I am really really grateful that in 2015 I could start sharing them with people who are patient and kind. Some of my old friends stayed and adjusted with me. I thank you all – old and new friends. You are making my days sunny. Every day.
I would also like to thank my online friends, colleagues and all readers for respecting my openness and supporting my journey. With little likes, reads, shares, comments – every single response matters a lot.
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Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!
On behalf of our team we would like to thank you for your support this year and wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.
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Happy Holidays from Wantage Summer Festival!
Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!
On behalf of our Committee at Wantage Summer Festival we would like to thank you for your support this year and wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.
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Session with Grove Scouts
We have visited Grove Scouts this Monday to help them with their Digital Badge. They did amazing work on re-creating the local landmarks in Minecraft – some of which were not so easy at all! Well done!
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Library Session – using books to inspire work in Minecraft
It was really really nice to see so many new faces during our Library session last time. We are also very excited that children reached out to library shelves and looked there for their Minecraft inspirations. Who knows, maybe one day they will write Minecraft novels?;)
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Our videos on YouTube
Jess and I worked on a small video the other say in the club, here it is. You will also see the work of Butler Centre Children and Grove Cubs there, on our YouTube Channel.
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On grief
Grief comes in waves.
Triggered by something small, trivial, like a memory or a date. Small at first, gentle, like a small cloud on the horizon…
Then it grows in magnitude, darkens and you know that no matter what life faces you with…it is there, still…
And when the life finally awards you with a quiet moment grief takes over, spins you around, pulls under the surface (where there is hardly any oxygen, light or sound) and spits you out…
If you are lucky, you shed a tear or two.
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Grief for people who are still here is unpredictable, endless, hard to comprehend or estimate. It’s hard to relate to. It provokes undefinable feelings – emptiness, but not so…
It dries the skin on our cheekbones.
It kills our sense of time.
It reminds us more of death and solitude than the dead themselves.
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On love
What is love to you?
I think about it less and less nowadays – but I used to be really fixated on it for years, really. I studied the Catholic definitions of love:
“Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away.”
I studied Shakespeare’s definitions too (Romeo quoted below):
‘Love is a smoke raised with the fume of sighs;
Being purged, a fire sparkling in lovers’ eyes;
Being vex’d a sea nourish’d with lovers’ tears:
What is it else? a madness most discreet,
A choking gall and a preserving sweet.’I studied psychologists and philosophers, Fromm (and his ‘Art of Loving’) made most sense to me:
‘Love is a decision, it is a judgment, it is a promise. If love were only a feeling, there would be no basis for the promise to love each other forever. A feeling comes and it may go. How can I judge that it will stay forever, when my act does not involve judgment and decision.’
I also learned about love that shakes the foundations of who we really are, stripes us of ourselves and leaves nothing behind. And so today I think of love less often, but when I do it always goes back to my parents. I guess they give us the first glimpse of love, right?
Yesterday was my Nameday. Back in Poland some of us like to celebrate the meaning of our name on days pre-defined in our calendar. 3rd of November happens to feature both my dad’s name (Hubert) and mine – both strongly connected to our heritage of woods and nature (Hubertus was the god of hunters, Sylwia – the female version of Silvanus – Celtic god of woods – was a forest fairy). And so we have always both quietly celebrated that day together. Yesterday was difficult to get through. My dad thought me many things but the practice of love was probably the most important one. I cannot really practice it the way he was teaching it to me. I can only try to remember it.
Regardless of smart definitions of love, experience and practice of it I still think love is the ability to be there, listen, but also act, give, speak and do something for the other. Fromm was right – we are all doomed to be isolated by society and seek love but forget that we need to learn to accept others but also ourselves, understand our isolation and heal first:
‘A person who has not been completely alienated, who has remained sensitive and able to feel, who has not lost the sense of dignity, who is not yet “for sale”, who can still suffer over the suffering of others, who has not acquired fully the having mode of existence – briefly, a person who has remained a person and not become a thing – cannot help feeling lonely, powerless, isolated in present-day society. He cannot help doubting himself and his own convictions, if not his sanity. He cannot help suffering, even though he can experience moments of joy and clarity that are absent in the life of his “normal” contemporaries. Not rarely will he suffer from neurosis that results from the situation of a sane man living in an insane society, rather than that of the more conventional neurosis of a sick man trying to adapt himself to a sick society. In the process of going further in his analysis, i.e. of growing to greater independence and productivity, his neurotic symptoms will cure themselves.’
I’d like to think that I learned that well by now. I’d like to think that my definition of love for people is maturing now. I’d like to think that I am where Fromm wishes me to be:
‘Immature love says: ‘I love you because I need you.’ Mature love says ‘I need you because I love you.’
How about you?
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Wantage Summer Festival in November
This month we are starting to feature local venues that wish to participate in Wantage Summer Festival 2016. We have already met with the Vale & Downland Museum and the Shush Entertainment Venue (both featured on images below). Both venues will be featured on our website shortly but our aim is to showcase all available venue opportunities so that our local artists and groups can be inspired to organise an event there. If you have a venue which in your opinion could be used during our 2016 festival, please let us know. We are keen on helping our event organisers in expanding to new places in town so all your input will be greatly appreciated.
To register your venue please fill out this form: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/MQXVTFW.
October was a month of planning, process building and research for our team. We have found the right tools for the 2016 events and organised an updated road map of our work. We would love to share it with you to get you involved too! It’s a long infographic so please check it out at the end of this blog post or here, on our Facebook fan page. Thank you!
Meetings with other event organisers and with local schools
We would like to say a big thank you to the following organisations for taking time to meet us: Vale & Downland Museum, Shush the Entertainment Venue, Wantage Youth Council, King Alfred’s Academy and Charlton Primary School. We have many more meetings scheduled and we will always find time for you. Please get in touch if you want to discuss the 2016 Festival with us or would like to get involved.
We want to meet and interview YOU! We can also feature your venue!
We have mentioned this in our open meetings – we are dedicating a lot of time to meet all past event organisers, festival participants and fans. We have already met a few Festival friends and we will publish interviews on our blog shortly. In the meantime we would love to plan new chats and interviews so please get in touch if you want to meet informally or if you want us to feature you on our website.
Can you help?
As we are researching the past of our Festival we are trying to reconstruct all past programmes, but we have no records from 1999 and 2000. Please, please, please let us know if you happen to have a copy of our Programme from those years! Thank you!
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Our Saturday sessions
It’s great to see that our early morning (9am!) sessions are growing and we have new members joining us! Last Saturday we have welcome three new families!
Children spent most of their time working on personal challenges, but also helping me in defying new challenge cards! We have also started playing with the LEGO Movie Maker – LEGO is always fun!:)
We cannot wait to continue!
