When Polish migrants arrived in Australia during the era of Colonialisation and the Gold Rush, they were usually single males out for adventure and eager to explore the world. Women, who came later, were more involved in preparing a home for children to flourish and so clustered together for reciprocal support. It is the families, cut off from their roots, which were most concerned about building new Communities for posterity. These emerging Communities thus mitigated the loss of extended family members, strengthening potential for accomplishment, robustness and affluence. Individual Community members were all highly motivated for success and prepared to make many sacrifices to achieve personal long term goals, yet at the same time they considered that their own personal prosperity was dependant on enduring Community prosperity, that, in its turn, was integral with its constituents’ individual well being.

Although there are instances of hermits surviving alone, it takes a village to raise a child, because, we all need some occasional support from others, in order to be able to cope with the daily grind of living – we get sick, we age and our bodies wear out. This is when healthy communities in villages will lend a helping hand, since everyone in the community is aware that, one day, they too may require assistance. Yet, most of us no longer live in small villages, most of the world’s population now lives in cities – how does this translate into massive populaces?

Communities invariably end up owning and administering property, or land, which, under English tradition, came to be known as the “Commons”. Many of us have heard about the “Tragedy Of The Commons”, but how many of us realise how that relates to our own communities?

The “Commons” belonged to everyone, as an asset held in common with all others, and, in centuries past, was usually managed by the heads of small villages to benefit all of the villagers, in a cooperative manner. Everyone benefited because resources could be combined to produce more than would be the case if the “Commons” were subdivided into little individual plots. Fields of wheat, rye, oats and barley would be seeded and tilled, then harvested by everyone who was capable.

One person would plant a lemon tree and someone else would have a plum, each of which would produce more than the individuals could consume alone. The fields and orchards would be manured by cows and sheep that ate the stubble and weeds – additionally ruminants provided milk and wool. Chickens would forage around the trees for worms and insects, protecting the trees from pests, subsequently the hens would lay their eggs. Comestible spoilage would be eaten up by pigs, supplying ham, as well as a plenitude of little piglets. Thus many villagers, who had contributed in other ways to the food production cycles, were also entitled to a share of the crops and everyone could enjoy the rewards from such collaboration.

The functionality of such systems depends on majority agreement and fair input. The “Tragedy” arises when everyone wants to benefit from the produce, but individuals are not prepared to contribute their own resources equitably, or when a small minority begin to appropriate the “Common property”, for their own exclusive use or selfishly personal gain, through force or guile.

Now, using mechanical means, huge harvests are gathered at reduced effort and yet only a small portion of humanity profits from this improvement because of greatly unequal distribution of wealth and property ownership. People go hungry, not because of any lack of food but because they cannot afford to purchase it.

“Commons” have been privatised and multinational corporations have accumulated more resources than are controlled by world governments, which gives them even more power to garner yet more important assets. Governments should be answerable to their citizens, however, in a similar way, are these corporations answerable to their shareholders? Who ultimately controls worldwide policy? Is this fair? Is this equitable? Is this moral or ethical? Is it sustainable? Is this a natural and inevitable outcome of democratic processes or is it simply crass capitalism without any principled restraint? Who is responsible for ameliorating the system?

How can vital changes be implemented to improve Community Equity?

2. How does this relate to the Polish Community in Australia Today?

When the Polish Community was small enough to gather in a private lounge room, there was no need for more. “Go¶æ w Dom, Bóg w Dom” – meant that visitors were always accommodated, since guests were welcomed as God would be welcomed into their homes.

As the community grew, organisations formed around specific activities and pursuits – the need for larger gathering spaces emerged. The Community pooled its resources and members began to set aside part of their private earnings to go into a common fund to build Community properties. These monies were not surplus to personal requirements, but the cause was a joint priority and worthy of investment and privation – manual labour contributions were equally valid. Various fundraising efforts were supported whole-heartedly. Committees had to be set up to manage resultant assets and constitutions were written to safeguard this derivative Community property.

Unfortunately, Community property is not safe from predation by vested interests – organisations can be subverted and constitutions can be rewritten. Legal advice and protections in Australia come at a price, which small Communities can seldom afford. Whether or not a cause is just, or an action immoral, the results of proceedings are often determined by who has the deeper pockets to pay for expensive lawyers. Each Community has its vultures, preying on the weak and vulnerable, sometimes masked in a benevolent guise – there are crafty foxes carefully investigating susceptibilities and meticulously preparing plans of attack on the unwary. By the time the strike has occurred, it can be too late to even consider a defence of any kind – losses can be grievous.

3. How can we protect our Community Assets?

When the soldier migrants arrived in several large contingents, they created structures to support their ongoing cultural traditions. At the same time as they were rebuilding their own private lives, they bought farmland and town plots so they could build halls and churches – then they lobbied for dedicated clergy, nuns and teachers so they could establish orphanages and schools. They did not allow personal animosities to impact on the viability of Community assets. They set up governance arrangements to ensure cohesion with accountability and transparent democratic processes. The structures they created were highly integrated and popularly sustained for many decades, offering an exceptionally resilient framework for further Community development.

Structures and processes are only as successful as we, as a Community, allow them to be, for as long we give them support. When personal benefits and glorification takes priority over Common good, within Community organisations, we all lose out. It is the failure of Community collaboration and effective co-operation that endangers Community assets and expedites loss of Community property. When there is little effort spared to improve important governance skills and scant knowledge of how to train and recruit, maintenance is neglected and establishments deteriorate. How do we instigate effective oversight of the various management committees to ensure due diligence? How can we implement improvements to executives who have commensurate responsibilities to keep properties in good order for the Community that generated these assets?

Australian Legal Protections are all too often insufficient and ineffective – even pertinent advice can be difficult to obtain – whereas vexatious claims can be utilised as weapons by unscrupulous persons to achieve personal objectives. Rules and regulations can be circumvented or manipulated. Genuine issues can be legally obfuscated to paralyse perceived opponents and gain advantage, to the detriment of the whole Community.

Community properties are valuable, yet often remain underutilised, underfunded and underappreciated – this leaves them vulnerable – with issues compounded by lack of necessary competencies in the committees of management. Raiders will take advantage of such weakness. Properties require maintenance and strategic planning to ensure long-term viability so that they may service the Community with the equivalent purpose and in the same spirit in which they were established. How do we prevent unscrupulous circumvention of these aims? How do we prevent others from profiteering at the expense of the Polish Community?

How many more “Polish Homes” will our Community lose before we regain cohesion? Have we given up the struggle, beset by apathy?

Recently elderly Polish Veterans, who were instrumental in amassing such Community assets, were denigrated and insulted by the rancorous removal of SPK commemorative emblems from one of the Polish Houses, during a prearranged appropriation of that property and associated assets by an alien organisation that the SPK (Polish equivalent of the Returned Services League) had been protesting after an AGM vote that should have been invalidated – sometimes it really appears that the associations watchdog is absent from duty.

When takeovers are expedited and properties move out of POLISH Community control, what happens to the tenants and the ephemera housed within?

o SPK (Polish Veterans) House in Canberra, ACT
o Hindmarsh Island recreation grounds in South Australia
o Kosciuszko House in Melbourne’s CBD, Victoria
o Millenium House in Footscray, Victoria
o Copernicus House in Western Australia???

Currently we have several organisations curating tremendously important Community archives that may need to be relocated – where can they go?

Do we approve of local Community history passing into private collections or being exported out? Do we remain oblivious and helpless, when it is lost, damaged, destroyed or stolen? How can we safeguard and preserve our local Community heritage for the benefit of our whole Community into posterity?

The Polish Community Council of Australia (RNPA) comes to us as a legacy of General Juliusz Kleeberg and the Polish Servicemen who arrived in Australia with practically nothing but the clothes on their backs.

Their unremitting dedication to the cause of Polish National greatness is unsurpassed by any other Polish migration to Australia and it is our responsibility to ensure that their sacrifice and hard work is not squandered by any successors.

It seems that the Community has lost faith in the leadership of the local Community Councils (organizacje polonijne). Organisations are seceding and, as a result, undermining critical ongoing operations of the greater Community. How do we prevent such fragmentation and weakening of the Governing structures and reincorporate the breakaways? How do we restore faith in the governance of State Community Councils (Federacji Stanowych)? How do we convey the importance of the aegis body to the disparate groups, within the purvey of the State and Federal Councils (Federacji stanowych i Rady Naczelnej)? How can we strengthen the authority and power of our representative bodies?

How can we stand by idly, when our Community, along with its constituent membership, is repeatedly brought into disrepute?

When the management of an organisation set up to serve the Community’s needs then proceeds to exploit weaknesses within the Community and disenfranchises the Community’s Governing bodies (organizacje nadzorcze) even further, it has very detrimental impacts on the whole Community long-term.

Treachery and betrayal leave a nasty legacy, begetting yet more deceit and corruption. To prevent further disintegration, vigilance and effective communication are vital, as is improved administrative competence.

Are there succession, vetting and mentoring plans to headhunt future Community leaders and prepare them for roles as ambassadors and managers in service to the Community? Do we have any recruitment strategies in place? Advertising – what – how – where – why?

There is a huge pool of second and third generation talent that the Community seems unable to access. We have produced countless dentists, doctors, lawyers, bankers and successful company CEOs. How can we effectively harness the talents and abilities of all those people who have strayed from the Community fold – how do we retain the dedication of our gifted youth, in the first place? Do we properly recognise the unremitting commitment of everyday volunteers upon whom all of our organisations depend upon, or do we only pin medals to the chests of prominent presidents and other dignitaries?

Lacking proper financial comprehension and a solid fiscal foundation, how can any administration of a Governing body continue to function? How can we augment the pecuniary structures that our Governing bodies depend upon? Where are our Community philanthropists and how do we gain their support?

How can the Governing body assist constituent members to improve their operational capacity and how can it develop its own operational capacity?

How can the Governing body provide vital legal assistance and advice to its members, so that effective protections for Community assets can be quickly and effectively implemented?

Could the Polish Community Council of Australia (RNPA) act on behalf of all of the proprietors of Polish Community properties to negotiate better group insurance premiums?

Why has the Polish Community Council of Australia (RNPA) not obtained a Deductible Gift Recipient Taxation Status? With such, as an umbrella body, it could then auspice constituent organisations to apply for grant monies.

Every PolArt Festival has resounded in a swag of missed opportunities, so has every Conference (Zjazd) session of the Polish Community Council of Australia.

We are asking a lot of volunteer boards, already burdened by administrative workloads as well as various diplomatic and representative roles, however such demands are the very nature of such offices. How can we ease our boards’ and committees’ requirements and teach them how to better fulfil their roles?

4. How can we better enable our Communities?

What did I miss at the Polish Community Council of Australia Conference (Jubileuszowy Zjazd)?

 A Welcome To Country or at least an Acknowledgement of Country. The first being a gesture of goodwill in which an elder of the local indigenous community welcomes visitors to their ancestral lands – the second being an acknowledgement by an event organiser that the land on which we are holding our event was the historic provenance of an Indigenous Community – and, in the same way that we expect others to respect our rights as owners of our properties and demand redress if we are unjustly dispossessed of it, the indigenous communities are owed the same. History has often witnessed the harsh treatment of the diversely multicultural communities once residing in the war ravaged Polish Commonwealth. Many of our families arrived in Australia as Dispossessed Persons. Our ancestors gave their lives to enable us to have legitimate choices in how we conduct our own. It only stands to reason that we, as a community, acknowledge the rights of others and respect their cultural heritage – especially if these others are the legitimate historic owners of the land we inhabit – it behoves us to apologise for infringing on their rights and to consider how we can offer our own, at the very least symbolic, reparations.

 It would also have been fitting for the gathering to have sung both the Australian and Polish National Anthems at the “Tribute to Freedom” concert, at the Sydney Town Hall, inaugurating the Conference (Zjazd).

 Every Organisation, including the Polish Community Council, regularly needs to go through a SWOT analysis – beginning by an evaluation of organisational Strengths, progressing to its Weaknesses, divining Opportunities and forecasting Threats.

The Polish Community Council of Australia (RNPA) should avail itself to the vast array of resources provided to the Australian Not-For-Profit Sector and institute a fundamental series of Governance Training Workshops for all of its constituent bodies, before turning this into an ongoing series of Leadership Training Courses – to retain the wisdom of the seniors, while at the same time nurturing the enthusiasm shown by the community’s youth, thus further extending Polish Community resources, so as to create and promote the development of a cohesive vision.

 Can an expert internal auditing body be implemented to examine and improve the ongoing functionality of all of our Community organisations, governance structures and committees of management?
 Can we instigate a tailored leadership and governance training program that is specifically designed to suit the needs of the Polish Community – it could possibly take advantage of all of the groundwork that the Polish Scouting Organisation (ZHP) does, which produces a lot of potential young and idealistic leaders without specific directives?
 Can we give our graduates more mentored opportunities to shine within our Community, generating new guiding lights?
 Can we employ a Grant Writing expert to serve our organisations and assist them in finding capital for projects, maintenance and promotion of our diverse activities? Ideally, this dedicated administrator could source, project manage the implementation of funds, and then Report to the Funding body, thus unburdening Committee members of major administrative workloads. Of course this Grant Writing Expert and Project Manager would have to be entitled to a percentage of the funds they obtain for the benefit of the Community, but the loss of a small percentage of something is better than one hundred per cent of nothing.
 Can we form an associated body of experts in Finance and Law to assist our constituent organisations in times of crisis?
 Should we not have a Polish Community Council office with a few paid staff to remove the administrative burden many of the constituent organisations cannot contend with and facilitating the Board Members to get on with the jobs that they were elected to do?

The last plenary of the Polish Community Council of Australia (Zjazd RNPA) did not allow for discussion of how the Council, as a whole, could grow and prosper so that it could better serve its constituency of the Polish Diaspora in Australia, yet the challenges that lie before the Polish Community Council of Australia are greater now than they have ever been. May its membership rise to their task in triumph.

5. Post Script regarding Polish Community of Australia: Archives and Media

How do we want our Community to be remembered - what artefacts will we leave for posterity – do we even know what we have lost and why?

Does the Polish Community want to communicate only to its Polish-speaking members or should it convey information to a wider Australian Community audience? Currently, and in the foreseeable future, the language generally utilised by the Australian Community is English. While it is important to retain the Polish language within the Polish diaspora, we have to consider what language will be employed by subsequent generations, so as not to disengage our youth. There are many benefits to bilingualism.

If the Community has a need for recording its history, as it happens, then there will remain a need for Community media to exist – the form that this takes may be subject to modification. Do we forego the remainder of our printed periodicals and move all of our communications to the internet, or is it worth subsidising publications such as Tygodnik Polski to prolong its service to our diaspora – where can we obtain ongoing funds to keep the presses rolling continually?

The Polish Community was once served by a diversity of locally generated publications and broadcast channels. Over the decades, one by one, many of these publications ceased production. Some have been retired when their founding editor retired, with no one to take over the editorial duties and printing processes, others have been starved of the requisite funds and suffered from insufficient subscriber numbers. To keep publishing facilities operational, the Community has to invest in technology and training for both paid and volunteer staff – remuneration should be commensurate with job demands and skill requirements – all this requires proper funding. Community publications need to change and modify their content streams with changes in expectations and general usage. Like all businesses, they have to adapt to changing circumstances in order to survive – yet they can only prosper if equipped with competent editors and Community support.

Newsprint was widely read and any information contained within was easily disseminated to the majority of the community. Niche publications serving specialist markets supplemented the mass market. Currently the market is fragmenting and it is becoming increasingly difficult to reach the general audience with important news. With technological changes, print publications are being replaced with internet forums and celluloid reels with flash drives. This eases information storage and retrieval but results in extremely impermanent records. Libraries and Archives around the world are struggling with the problems endemic in digital media.

The Wayback Machine occasionally brings back a snapshot of a defunct webpage but researchers encounter multitudes of dead links and “404 errors” when searching for particular items. Our parents sent out invitations on paper – today’s social media exchanges are already the subject of debates about inheritance of profiles and privacy infringements – does anyone really expect them to exist for more than a fleeting instant?

Who archives our local Community Media creations? Copies of printed books, newspapers and brochures should be deposited at both the National Library of Australia and at the various State Libraries – here they are expected to be stored well into the future so that they can be accessed in the centuries to come – there is no similar requirement for audio-visual productions.

The locally recorded Polish programs once shown on Community Television in Adelaide, Melbourne and Sydney proved too costly for sparse sponsorship dollars to cover for more than a decade or so. Community Radio is more resilient because ongoing productions costs can be minimal and support structures do not require as much investment in time, skill development and administrative backing, although these are still vitally important.

To my knowledge, there are no archives kept of Polish Community Media broadcasts. Individual broadcasters may keep copies of their own work but no central repositories collect all of the valuable content generated by the Diaspora. Hundreds of hours of interviews are lost to the Community heirs. We have photos from concerts but little audio remains to allow us to enjoy the virtuosity of our talented performers. The Polish Diaspora has even given the Australian Community international stars, yet we within the Community are often oblivious to our achievers. At the same time, should we expect our Tall Poppies (nasze gwiazdy) to volunteer their talent, if they do not even know that their gift is important for our community to commemorate?

Our Tall Poppies are important ambassadors for our Community and should be utilised to their full potential as such. We have to keep note of who they are and what they are capable of contributing, at any given time. Our celebrities should be invited to Community events so that they can actively participate in the life of the community, enriching us all in the process; they have to be embraced by the Community, so that they, in turn, can benefit the whole Diaspora. We must celebrate our high achievers.

The Polish Museum and Archives in Australia (incorporated) was formed to save the Polish Community ephemera collected by history aficionado Jozef Szczepanski in Adelaide. The inaugural members rescued over fifty tonnes of paper from an ignominious fate, by transporting hundreds of boxes full of uncatalogued letters, photographs, and sundry documents over hundreds of kilometres to an underutilised Polish building where this collection is still in the process of being sorted so that the contents, of the now archival boxes, can be categorised and recorded for posterity, with the aim of making it available to all of the local Australian and Polish scholars and genealogy enthusiasts.

It has gained the recognition, not only of Museums Australia, but also the International Convergence of Polish Museums and Archives. Unfortunately, ownership of Millenium House, the headquarters of the Polish Museum and Archives in Australia, has now been transferred to a Multicultural organisation and security of tenure cannot be guaranteed. It is critical that the Museum acquires its own climatically controlled premises with enough room to expand so that it can become the epitome of a safe repository of Polish cultural history in Australia. The Museum and Archives requires vast storage and exhibition space for its important collections pertaining the Polish Community Council of Australia and its subsidiary organisations, as well as prominent individuals:

 Purpose built exhibition space would enable much more attractive displays to entice visitors
 Garments and Handcrafts could be revealed
 Special Audio and Film collections could be maintained

How would we want our community and ourselves to be defined in posterity? The whole of the Polish Diaspora has to actively support archiving and preservation of radio and television broadcasts, as well as costumes, uniforms, medals, photographs, books and periodicals. To sustain our local Community history we should endeavour to donate sufficient funds as well as all sorts of ephemera; linguistic educational aids, contracts under which immigrants were allowed to settle, identity cards and passes, trophies and commendations, festival programs and dance group t-shirts. Those collections of pressed flowers, postcards and stamps, the beer mugs and art glass, the corny and the kitsch, could one day have real value to for social historians and anthropologists. It is the diaries, sketchbooks, family recipe folders, letters and other forms of correspondence that tell us most about how people lived and reveal their innermost thoughts. Volunteer labour and paid professionals have to work together so that, through collaboration, we can continue to promote and care for our Polish Community Legacy.

Anna Waleria Zamecznik