We would like to sincerely thank the Polish Community Council of Australia for their initial confidence in entrusting the Perth Polish community with the 2012 PolArt Festival. Since our initial formation, the PolArt Preparation Committee has been working tirelessly to commence Festival preparations in Perth. Regretfully, in recent days, we have been forced to make the difficult decision to withdraw our proposal PolArt 2012: A Perth Proposal, due to recent actions by the Polish Community Council of Western Australia.

Our vision for the Perth Festival was to strengthen and unite the Polish and Australian communities through the universal language of art, inspiring all participants to achieve their personal best in their artistic expression, whether dance, theatre, music, film, visual arts or literature.

Fulfilling this vision has become increasingly difficult due to miscommunications with Polish Community Council of Western Australia. Actions in recent months prove to us that their intentions were and continue to be questionable, and have resulted in much wasted time and effort, and tarnished the reputations of those involved, due to inconsistencies between actual events and the documents they have distributed to the Polish Community Council of Australia. This has had significant repercussions for the quality of the Festival in Perth, particularly given upcoming deadlines for submitting grant applications and an already discouraged final Committee.

Therefore, as a result, we as the existing PPC wish to withdraw our initial proposal PolArt 2012: A Perth Proposal, submitted to folkloric dance groups across Australia and to the Polish Community Council of Australia on 29 March 2010, and along with this, our desire to continue preparations for the Festival in 2012.

We also wish to add that all material produced by the PPC remains copyright property and is not to be used for any purposes, without prior contact with, and written permission from the authors.

We feel that the Polish Community Council of Western Australia had many opportunities to show interest and provide support during all preparations, had their true intentions from the start been to support those on the PPC, and to support Perth’s bid for the 2012 Festival (rather than 2015).

The whole situation has proved that the next generation of Polish youth do not have a place in the structures governing the current Polish community, where there is no room for innovation or freedom of speech.

The level of detail, professionalism and competency demonstrated in our submitted Proposal, provides testament to the work of our committee and our approach to preparations. Certainly, with a drop of good will, circumstances could have turned out very differently.

Due to the existing Festival governance structure, our decision to withdraw has been reconfirmed, as we do not see any ability to work cooperatively with the Polish Community Council of Western Australia, in the spirit of fairness and equality, given their actions of recent months.

Despite this unfortunate conclusion, we would once again like to thank the Polish Community Council of Australia for their initial confidence in the Polish Community in Perth in preparing the 2012 PolArt Festival. PPC members remain determined to continue local efforts to showcase the Polish culture to the broader Australian community.

To fulfil our responsibilities in informing the relevant organisations, this letter has also been copied to all Folkloric Dance Groups, who initially voted in favour of our proposal. (This is why we have chosen to write this letter in English, as all previous correspondence with dance groups has been in English.)

Effective immediately, our Committee and the (initial) final Committee will be dissolved, taking with them intellectual capital, energy and enthusiasm, as well as lessons learned from initial preparatory work.

We will however, make ourselves personally available to the local and national community to answer any questions they may have regarding our decision and our work up to this point. We wish the Polish Community Council of Australia, and Western Australia, all the best in this endeavour.

PolArt Preparation Committee members