Here’s your chance for a head start this season. Our friend Mirek from Globe Trek has organized a long weekend getaway to the paradise that is Tobermory. Here’s how it’s going down:

ACTIVITIES:
1 Bruce Trail hike 25 km (each leg 12.5 ending with camp overnight)
2 Intro to bouldering and rock climbing (take climbing shoes and harness if you want to have safe fun)
3 Bush Craft – intro survival course
4 Day at Sauble beach

RIDE INFO:
1 Check map here.
2 Departing GTA at 04:30 am Saturday May 19 (to avoid traffic)
3 Returning around 21:00 pm Monday May 21
4 Mini Bus has 12 spots and another vehicle has 4
5 Additional participants can follow Mirek to the group camping spot at Cyprus Campground. A reservation has been made only for bus, so if you plan on adding your car to the convoy let Mirek know so that he can add make a reservation for you.

FOOD & DRINK:
1 Meals provided (we are cooking meals in big pot)
2 Bring a 1.5L bottle of mineral water
3 Bring your own snacks and alcohol
NOTE: Let Mirek know if you have food allergies

PACKING LIST:
1 Small compressed personal kit
2 Sleeping bag and mat, hiking backpack
3 Light hat, T- shirt x2, shorts, hiking socks x2, good boots, sandals
4 Fleece, pants, woolen socks, rain jacket, rain pants, towel
5 Water bottle, KFS (knife,fork,spoon), metal plate/cup, soap, flash light
6 Personal first aid kit, compass / GPS (optional), camera
7 Bug spray, sunscreen,
8 Toilet paper for 3 days
Note: We will have a portable shower station with us

COST:
Estimated at a mere $50 per person

FOR MORE INFO OR TO SIGN UP:
Visit the Facebook event page or email Mirek at globetrekinfo[at]gmail.com.

Still unsure? (whatsamatter with you!) Check out a few photos and a quick vid from last weekend’s trip:

Tanning time!

Grottos and water-carved rocks are but few of the features of the Tobermory landscape.

People come for the beaches, the diving, the unspoilt countryside and the relaxed pace of life. The massive, rugged cliffs of the park are inhabited by thousand-year-old cedar trees, overhanging the crystal-clear waters of Georgian Bay.

"Hiking is just walking where it's okay to pee."

Nothin' like camp cooking.

]]> http://pisk.ca/2012/05/no-plans-for-the-long-weekend-we-have-something-just-for-you/feed/ 8 http://pisk.ca/2012/05/ellen-ericson-a-second-confirmed-keynote-speaker/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=ellen-ericson-a-second-confirmed-keynote-speaker http://pisk.ca/2012/05/ellen-ericson-a-second-confirmed-keynote-speaker/#comments Tue, 15 May 2012 11:41:41 +0000 Quo Vadis Chicago http://pisk.ca/?p=2996 We are excited to announce our second keynote speaker—Ellen Ericson.

As a business etiquette and international protocol consultant, she teaches Fortune 500 companies, law firms, non-profit organizations, and business professionals how to refine their corporate culture and communication skills to benefit their top line growth.

Her philosophy is, “If you show others respect you build their trust. Once you earn their trust, you earn their business.”

Her main goal is to teach professionals how to succeed in business by demonstrating respect for themselves and others, and to be aware and appreciate cultural differences when doing business in other regions of the world. Ellen focuses her training on enhancing one’s professionalism, interpersonal and communication skills

Sir Ian McKellen: he probably golfs, and he's also about as sir as it gets.

Recent graduate? Don’t know why you can’t find a job with your spectacular CV and charming disposition?

It’s cuz you can’t golf, dummy. Everyone knows that in order to find that cushy corporate job, you need to know how to golf.

PISK is now offering a transitory course for its members into the world of young-professionalism. Don’t worry though: this isn’t a baptism-by-fire type thing. We’ll ease you into it. We start with…wait for it…mini golf. If you get this, then maybe we’ll look at upgrading to a driving range.

Come join the Pisklęta at Beach Fairway Golf Range in Toronto for a day on the greens (Mini greens? Baby greens? Wait…those are vegetables) on June 16th at 6:00pm. Get your putting up to par, and then we’ll see about that job…

Check out the events listing for details.

Iskra team members present the value of staying active in Polonia to a Polish high school in Scarborough last month.

Just a super quick note that PISK’s high school outreach program, the Iskra Project, has just announced the opening of registration for their upcoming Iskra University Prep Conference, happening at McMaster University in Hamilton on August 11-12, 2012.

For senior high school students: Summed up quickly, the conference will give you a chance to meet with fellow Polish high school students from across the province as well as with recent university graduates who want to pass on their experiences to you so you don’t make the same mistakes they did. We will have very many interesting people there: professors, engineers, scientists, medical professionals, lawyers, journalists, politicians, artists, entrepreneurs… basically loads of people whose business cards will came in extremely handy when you’re looking for your first summer job or co-op placement in a year or so.

To find out more, read our release statement, check out our site, or just watch our promo video below:

Register for the Iskra Conference now!

What you see, and what you're actually up against with the lady behind that kiosk.

How do you say “please” in Polish? I’ll give you a hint, it’s not “proszę”. That’s right. Forget everything you ever learned in Polish school; forget all your parents ever told you—it’s all fantasy and lies.

The secret magic word to get what you want in the world of Polish customer service is (are you ready?):

Niech.

That’s right. “Niech” has no identical English equivalent but its meaning is somewhat contained in the phrase “Let’s”, or “Why don’t you go ahead and”, or, perhaps most accurately, “Look, this is what you’re going to do for me”. The Canadian visiting Poland for the first time will be shocked the first time they are ignored despite their polite “proszę” approach. I even once got openly laughed at for asking “Czy istnieje możliwość że…”—“Is there a chance that…”

Number of people who genuinely want to help you in this picture: 0.

Don’t do that.

Backpackers visiting Poland: leave your politeness at home with the pet-sitter. Seriously. It’ll do you no good there. You want something done? Be a man about it. A rude man. Tell people what they’re going to do for you—don’t ask them if they can or can’t, if they’d like to or not. This will get you nowhere except back to the lady in the other kiosk who just sent you to the lady you’re talking with now.

That’s right: nowhere is this strange cultural subtlety more prevalent than in train stations, where everyone is already stressed because they’re spending more time talking to ladies in kiosks than actually getting to where it is they’re going. I’m not even going to get into the nightmare we experienced backpacking Poland two years ago, where some weird strike resulted in the establishment of three independent rail lines, the tickets of which were not interchangeable. This meant getting from Warsaw to Morskie Oko required buying new, separate tickets aaaaaaall along the way. Wikipedia sums the Polish train environment best: “Due to the average age of Poland’s railway network and lack of maintenance, many sections of track are limited to speeds below 100 km/h even on trunk lines.” Trust me, speed isn’t the only thing that needs work there.

This guy has been in the same line since WWII.

Throwing a please-in’ and thank-you-in’ Canadian tourist into this mess is like throwing a bleeding cow to piranhas. A blind, lame, bleeding cow. Which is why I write this post. To help you, o weary traveller, not appear the fool next time you visit the land of my ancestors.

Try it next time you’re traveling. Really. You will be shocked at how well all your affairs will go.

You know how nice guys finish last? In Poland, nice guys just don’t finish.

Protip: This also works with older Polonia; delis, dental offices, churches, etc.

Nope. It does not matter how you spell or say it, the word Leadership can be a scary concept. I have come to notice a couple things being involved in Polonia (though this by no means is limited to our community).

1) Many people stress the importance of becoming involved – insert community, organization, and/or activity here –  by being a leader and; 2) Many people become apprehensive and hesitant to become involved because of this.

At least I will speak from my own experiences. This is exactly how I felt when I started first year university and chickened out from running for the PSA executive at the University of Toronto. This feeling continued when I was thinking of running for the PISK executive back in 2010 and slightly remained when I was thinking about joining the Quo Vadis III team. The concept of Leadership in my mind was strongly linked to great responsibility and I worried that not only did I lack previous experience but I also lacked worldly knowledge, connections, and ideas.

Now to be clear I am not judging anyone or any organization. What I want to stress and question though, is that perhaps we (society as a whole) have made Leadership something bigger than us. That this concept has become linked to the idea that in order to be a good Leader we must tackle a world wide problem, and find a solution for it, and it must be something with a wide ranging impact. That the person who takes on the responsibility has to not only have a large CV but be extremely intelligent and well read. There is also this idea that there is a leadership characteristic and it is something possessed only by that single individual way up thereeee at the top of the organization. Perhaps it is even some special gene?

I want to argue that leadership begins with the Individual.

What I mean is that Leadership can be as small as giving someone a minute of your day, offering a helping hand to someone who needs it, being a mentor, even smiling back at a stranger when you pass them on the sidewalk. I think that we really do not realize the impact our attitude and actions can have on others. This is my long way of trying to say that you can make a difference in so many ways and it does not have to be with a world changing motion. Leadership begins with YOU and everyone can be a Leader. It is not so scary. I promise!

Quoting Drew Dudley “as long as we make leadership something bigger than us, as long as we keep leadership as something beyond us, as long as we make it about changing the world, we give ourselves the excuse not to expect it every day from ourselves and each other.”

“I think definitely it would have been Polish because I speak Polish and it’s something I connect to… What I would have probably done… would have been something about the Solidarity movement and… there probably would have been a little bit of heavy metal in there… Maybe some Pantera or something would be in there with maybe some hip-hop.”

Here, check him out as he belts out Płynie Wisła, płynie—complete with a dance and everything:

And here, he tells us a bit about how his family celebrates wigilia (skip to 1:00):

… cool, eh?

As society becomes increasingly culturally diverse, particularly here in North America, cross-cultural partnerships are pretty much becoming the standard. Once we step past the boundaries of the immigrant generation and venture into the first generation and beyond, we start seeing more diversity in our cultural communities.

Naturally, Polonia is no exception.

There are some out there who retain their Brzęczeszkiewicz-style last names whose Polish background can be spotted from miles away, like your Leelee Sobieskis, Jared Padaleckis, Christine Baranskis, Roman Polanskis, Brothers Wachowski, and John Krasinskis. On the flip side, however, there are quite a few people of Polish background out there who remain cleverly disguised and who might not immediately strike you as being of Polonia.

Keep an open mind though, because you never know! Here are a few of my favorites:

Lisa Ray

Polish on her mother’s side and Hindu Bengali Indian from her father’s side, Ray hails from Etobicoke, Ontario. Her career in the entertainment industry began when she was spotted by an agent while on vacation in India. Since then, she’s taken on modelling and acting, most famously staring in a number of Bollywood films and then in the Oscar-nominated film Water, among many others. You can catch her now as the host of Top Chef Canada.

Danny Pudi

There are a number of places you might remember this lovable face from. Pudi, whose parents are Indian and Polish, has appeared in a number of hit, TV series and commercials over the course of his career; T-Mobile, McDonald’s, and Snickers have all used that wonderful mug of his. Small-screen-wise, you might remember him from Gilmore Girls, ER, Cougar Town, Chuck, and most famously/consistently in Community.

Karen O

Known just as much for her eclectic fashion sense as for being the lead singer of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Karen Orzolek was born in South Korea to a Korean mother and Polish father. She’s rocked the title of one of rock’s hottest women by Spin Magazine and Blender and has a rather impressive CV. A latest addition to her portfolio is the composition of the entire album (with the exception of one song) for the movie Where the Wild Things Are.

Alessandra Ambrosio

Ambrosio is of that famous yet elusive tribe of Poles living in Brazil. Her parents are Italian and Polish-Brazilian. Take a look at that face, and you’ll have no trouble figuring out why she’s one of the most famous models in the world. Revlon, Dior, Armani, Prada, Chanel, Oscar de la Renta, Vogue, GQ, Cosmopolitan…oh, how I could go on… have all employed this face at some point in time. She’s most famously known for strutting her stuff down the catwalk in the infamous Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show.

And those are but a few! Who knows: maybe one day some Pisklęta might find themselves part of this prestigious group?

Greetings to the Young Polonians of Quo Vadis:

I congratulate you on your initiative to create an intercontinental network of young Polonians, dedicated to America and yet conscious of their deep ties with Poland. Indeed, the latter provide a strong basis for the former: Americans of Polish descent, proud of their historical origins, make good citizens and have served America bravely in the conflicts in which America happened to be engaged in the course of the last hundred years. As an American of Polish origin, I am particularly conscious of the fact that by retaining in full my rather Polish-sounding name, I have contributed to greater confidence on the part of Polish Americans in retaining also their original names. It seems to me that every time a Polish-American name appears in some prominent position, one notes thereby another step forward in the increased influence of Polish Americans in America without the loss of their Polish visibility and identity.

You are to be commended on your efforts and I wish you every success.

s/Zbigniew Brzezinski

My name is Maciek Piekarski and I am one of the Facilities Coordinators for Quo Vadis Calgary 2012. Monica Albertin, along with myself, have been diligently working on arranging conference facilities, accommodations, catering, transportation and other miscellaneous logistics for this year’s conference.

The conference will be hosted in and around Canmore, Alberta. Canmore is situated in the heart of the Canadian Rockies, 106 km west of Calgary. As a Calgarian I’ve always taken full advantage of our close proximity to the mountains. More often than not, Canmore is where I choose to stay when going on hiking or mountain biking trips. The stunning natural beauty of the area along with the abundance of wildlife is what always draws me back.

One of the highlights I am most looking forward to in this conference will be the time spent at Rafter 6 Ranch. The guest ranch is located 25km east of Canmore and has been the location for many motion pictures, TV shows, commercials and music videos. Boasting a wide range of ranch animals from horses to donkeys and even an albino buffalo, the visit will be one that you will not soon forget!

Register NOW before it’s too late! (http://quovadiscalgary2012.com/registration)

Maciek Piekarski
QV Calgary Facilities Coordinator

PS, Yes that is ME in that picture!