1st Transnational Meeting to Gronowo Górne, Poland

Report on the 1st Transnational Meeting in Gronowo Górne, Poland
11th – 15th November 2014

(download PDF)

The 1st Transnational Meeting of Career In Art, Erasmus+ project was an event that brought together representative participants from all partner schools involved in this strategic partnership.

Participating teachers:

Partner no 1     POLAND
                           Joanna Jastrzębska
                           Krystyna Brinkiewicz
                           Aleksandra Matulewicz
                           Paulina Łuczak

Partner no 2    ROMANIA
                          Iohana Cristina Udrescu
                          Aristide Liviu Udrescu

Partner no 3     BELGIUM
                           Anne – Marie Van Moll
                           Else Dhaen

Partner no 4     TURKEY
                           Serkan Turkan,
                           Kamuran Yesilot

Partner no 5    SLOVAKIA
                          Jitka Pukšová
                          Veronika Lauková

Partner no 6    SLOVENIA
                          Sandra Žeželj
                          Peter Rau
                          Sonja Lebedinec Radigues
                          Brigita Peklaj


Arrival and departure of all guest countries.

Meeting Timetable- Annex 1

The 1st Transnational Meeting of Career In Art, Erasmus+ project had the following objectives:
•  to rearrange some of the activities in the timetable, that were delayed due to contractual issues;
•  to identify the basic principles, methods and strategies for developing the action plan in order to address all workshops and activities in the next 5 months;
•  to strengthen the commitment of all partner schools;
•  to share experiences, challenges and technical knowledge on how to better address the planned activities, considering the need to discuss practical arrangements;
•  to discuss future agreements regarding short-term students exchanges
•  to discuss the evaluation and dissemination of key activities

The themes of the 1st Transnational Meeting of Career In Art, Erasmus+ project were:
1. Implementing the activities plan;
2. Promoting participation of students and teachers;
3. The roles and tasks of each institution in this partnership;
4. Budget issues;
5. Monitoring progress: measurement and analysis of finished or in progress activities, in order to insure their quality.

Preparations
Preparations for the 1st Transnational Meeting of the Career In Art, Erasmus+ project took place in October 2014, the coordinating school made practical arrangements, such as booking the hotel, preparing the programme, providing information on how to arrive to the school etc. Participants made travel arrangements: booking flights, buying insurance, prepared all the necessary information for the meeting.  

Organization:
The 1st Transnational Meeting of Career In Art, Erasmus+ project took place over three days, with Day One and Day Three taking the form of working sessions combined with study visits and Day Two consisting only of working sessions.

The working sessions included the official opening and closing of the meeting and roundtables focusing on discussing all priorities and agendas, such as development of the project and the best approach to it.

The official opening of the 1st Transnational Meeting of Career In Art, Erasmus+ project was held in the teachers room at Fine Arts High School in Gronowo Górne and included speeches by Mrs. Joanna Jastrzębska, project coordinator and Mrs. Krystyna Brinkiewicz, school headmistress.

 

Day one, Wednesday 12 November 2014:

1. All partners had the opportunity to finally meat face to face and to get to know each other better
2. A study visit to Gdansk, was organized in order to create a comprehensive programme of guided visits to places of special interest for the objctive of our project. We have aimed to select the places of artistic value that are important to be visited by our students, during their visit to Poland in March 2015. A guided tour with History of Art teacher Paulina Łuczak has given the project coordinators an insight into art and history of Poland and the region of Polish school. Being familiar with these topics is relevant for the students' future artistic career. The outcome of this visit is the choice of worthwhile venues, as The Academy of Fine Arts in Gdansk, The Arthus Court, The Museum of History, Mariacka Street, Długa Street and The Mother Mary Cathedral, and if possible an amber jewellery workshop.
3. The visit to Gdans offered our art teachers an increased experience of European Cultural Diversity, which they will be able to use in their classrooms. Teachers gained practical and theoretic knowledge in the fields of fine arts, history of art, architecture, urban planning and restoration.
4. Team building activities were also planned this day, their aim being to create a stronger team and to improve the quality of the work done in this partnership.

Day two, Thursday 13 November 2014:
The second day of the meeting was dedicated only to working sessions. These are the issues discussed:

1. Changes in the timetable

1. Due to late announcement of results the timetable of the project needed to be modified.
2. The first transnational meeting was held in November. We decided on the following timetable for the next meetings.
3. 1st Short-term learning/training/teaching activities (students exchange) will be organized in Poland, from 8th to 14th March 2015.
4. 2nd Transnational Meeting will be held in Romania, from 20th to 25th April 2015.
5. 2nd  Short-term learning/training/teaching activities (students exchange) will be organized in Romania, between10th to 16th May 2015.
6. Other changes have been specified in another file with the project timetable, in Annex 2.

2. Logos
We have decided to introduce a formal document – a logo tender, which in a detailed way specifies requirements concerning logos and the project’s graphic identity. It will also give students the opportunity to learn about the rules and requirements of tenders, which will help them later on in their professional careers. And last but not least, the winning students will enrich their portfolios with diplomas from international tenders.

The document will be published on the project website and known to all participants. Also the choice of project logo and voting has been discussed. The arrangements are as follows. The voting will be carried out in two stages.

School stage
At the beginning of December students of each of partnership schools will submit their ready works to the local coordinator of the project. Afterwards, a jury composed of 2 teachers and 3 students will evaluate the submitted works applying the point criteria mentioned in the logo tender file. They must choose up to 3 the best works.

International stage
Until December 10th school stage will have been completed in all partnership countries and the local project coordinators will have sent the maximum of 3 best logos to the dropbox file.
Then again a jury composed of 3 students and 2 teachers will vote for the best designs applying the point criteria as in the school stage. However, they will not be allowed to grade the logos from their own country.
The stage finishes on 15th December. Until then local coordinator will have completed a table with their points in the dropbox file.
The project coordinator will be responsible for counting all points and the winner will be announced on the 17th December.

3. Art Dictionary

We shared ideas concerning this project task. The form and content have been discussed as well as the range of resposibility.
The Polish school is responsible for the graphic form of the dictionary and the task will be finished in March 2015. However, all partners will have their share in the task and will deal with finding vocabulary in the following artistic areas:
 

Some of the words should be accompanied by a graphic design. It refers the words that can be shown aș a picture like a brush, easel, sculpture, fabric, camera, etc.
If possible, there should be 5 pictures per category.
Of course, they must be created by the project participants.
Sending all the words to a dropbox account is to be done by the end of January 2015.
Then all schools will need to translate all the words sent by the partners  by the end of February.

4. Project website
The country responsible for the website is Slovenia, which has already made an initial design. It has been agreed that the website will be linked to their school domain in order to provide better management of the website and its longevity. The website will be prepared by their ID department. It will contain different information about the project, project documents, results of the project will be presented there, photo gallery, links to school websites, Facebook accounts, etc. But most importantly, it will offer a clear and easy access to all the key activities of the project.

The graphic identity of the website will be finalized when we get the winning logo and graphic identity of the project (resulting from the international logo tender). The results will be known on December 17, 2014. Until then, a temporary template will be used for the project website.

We have agreed that all partners will send the descriptions of their schools and photos to Slovenia by 30 November. One of the menus on our project web site will be dedicated to partner schools (i.e. Partners). We have agreed to write a short text, in which we will describe our hometowns and schools. In addition to that, everyone should add 8 photos. All this will then be posted for students, parents, colleagues and general public to see.

In December 2014, all partners will get login details and will contribute to the creation of the website as Editors.

5. Film – an interview with an artist

The content and the rules have been discussed.
Romania will be responsible for this task and the Romanian coordinator has agreed to prepare a list of questions that the interview could include.
The films must not be longer than 15 minutes. They may be in English or with English subtitles.
The task must be finished before March 1st 2015.

6. Short-term learning/training/teaching activities

A verbal agreement of how to better prepare the short term students exchanges was discussed. All partners have agreed that during these events the hosting family has to provide 3 meals to the guest student and of course the accommodation. If they go on a 1-day trip the student must be provided with packed lunch.

We have also discussed the terms of arrival of the foreign students to Poland.
The preliminary plan for the 5-day visit in Poland in March is as follows:

* screen printing workshop,
* 3D film animation workshop,
* painting workshop,
* we will visit Gdansk and Malbork,
* we will go to a conference with Poviat Authorities,
* we will visit an artist workshop
* a lecture in El Gallery on history of art in the region.

On the days of workshops - the classes will be from 8 to 3p.m (or 9-4) and then the students will have the afternoons free to spend with the hosting students.

7. Budget
It has been decided that all cost and expenses for participants like local transportation, museum tickets, entry fares must be covered by each school out of their own project budget.


Day three, Friday 14 November 2014:

1. Dissemination
Dissemination of the project has been discussed with all partners' agreement to use various dissemination methods. Amongst many the most popular ones will be:
* writing articles, placing photos, impressions in the project website in English
* writing articles, placing photos, impressions in the school websites in English or native languages
* writing press releases to the local mass media – newspapers, radio, webpages (hosting country)
* informing the local authorities and school authorities about the project and its progress (hosting country)

All partners have agreed to equally contribute to the project website and keep the project participants up-to-date with tasks and activities.

We have decided to keep track of all dissemination activities in the Dropbox account, if possible giving links to the sites.

2. Evaluating tangible and intangible results
We have discussed ways of evaluating tangible and intangible results of the project. This will be done:
*with the help of self-assessment questionnaires for students and teachers participating in the project
These documents will help us assess our work, and will provide us with useful information concerning our project’s aims and objectives.

1. Study visit to Malbork Castle
Since our project focuses on art, we want our students to visit the most outstanding cultural sights. This will help them gain knowledge related to history of art, architecture and urban planning, which will in turn help them with their future studies and professional careers. Some of the students will also take school leaving exams in these fields. This is why planning sightseeing visits to the near-by cities was one of the priorities of our transnational meeting to Poland. Upon visiting Malbork Castle, which is a World Heritage Site designated by UNESCO, we have unanimously decided that it is a must see for our students.

3. Visit to EL Gallery in Elblag
The aim of this visit was to see and evaluate the works of students from Fine Arts High School in Gronowo Górne, and to assess the added value the school will contribute to the project.
The exhibition featured graphics, mainly from the screen-printing workshop, which clearly showed the immense talent and potential on the part of Polish students. Teachers from other partner schools could see what added value the Fine Arts High School in Gronowo Górne will contribute to the project; i.e. creativity, freshness and workshop-based approach to teaching.
Moreover, the El Gallery is and one-of-a-kind, unique exhibition site – it used to be a gothic church, and now has become a well-known and greatly appreciated gallery in Poland.  There students coming to Poland in March 2015 will be able to participate in a lecture on history of art in the region, and see the current exhibition.

During the visit we were able to see a performance by Jacek Adamas on Polish realism from the 70s titled „Jacek Adamas- TACZKI POLSKIE/ Hommage á Jerzy Bereś (z cyklu Kompresjonizm)”, the performance took place outiside in the courtyard. Additionaly, in the interior of the Gallery we could see the exhibition by Jakub Słomkowski- ANIMAL/ŚWIĘTY OFIARA.

The website of the El Gallery is http://www.galeria-el.pl/aktualnosci.html.