In 2008 we celebrated our 70th Anniversary. We looked back on what we had achieved in those 70 years and summed up, sometimes with a touch of humour, our up-to-date achievements. Here they are:
1. The British Council office was opened in Poland in 1938. George Bidwell was its first representative.
2. The British Council office in Warsaw was the second BC office in the world (the first one had been opened in Egypt).
3. Our first office was located at Górnośląska street. On 14 September 1948 we moved the office to Aleje Jerozolimskie where we have been located ever since.
4. In the 21th century 1,500,000 visitors have entered our office in Warsaw – which is as if the whole population of Estonia had walked through our doors.
5. In Poland we have British Council offices in Warsaw and Krakow. We also run eight partner libraries and twenty three examination centres in co-operation with our partners.
6. We have 21 Internal Exam Centres based at universities around Poland.
7. The British Council has been offering Examinations Services in Poland since 1938.
8. In 70 years over 250,000 people in Poland have been awarded a Cambridge ESOL qualification after sitting the exam with the British Council.
9. Our biggest exam venue accommodated 1800 candidates at one sitting.
10. Our youngest exam candidate was six years old. Our oldest exam candidate was 68 years old.
11. Our youngest First Certificate in English candidate was 10 years old.
12. When our customers have enquiries about exams, they mostly ask about IELTS (International English Language Testing System) - the English language exam for foreigners who want to study or work abroad.
13. Our British Council Teaching Centres offer a variety of special courses which can lead to a related exam in e.g. Legal English, Business English and Financial English.
14. In Autumn 2007 semester we taught 60 FCE, CAE and CPE courses.
15. Our courses are aligned with the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEF). This is useful for students who want to work or study in the wider European arena and need to show evidence of their level of English.
16. All our teachers are qualified and have a minimum of two years experience after training to be teachers of English as a Foreign Language.
17. Our teachers not only teach Polish students but also train Polish teachers.
18. One of our teachers wrote the teacher’s book to accompany the Cambridge Legal English exam preparation course book.
19. British Council teachers deliver presentations each year at the IATEFL conference (International Association of Teachers of English as a Foreign Language).
20. In 2007 two of our teachers have presented on TVN Lingua
21. Between 1994 and 2003 in cooperation with CODN we trained more than 43.000 teachers of English.
22. In cooperation with the Ministry of Education, between 1988 and 1995 we set up 56 Teacher Training Colleges in Poland.
23. HM Queen Elizabeth II inaugurated our new offices, library and teaching centre in Warsaw on 26 March 1996.
24. At present we have interactive whiteboards (IWBs) in every classroom. In a recent survey of our students the vast majority said the IWBs help them to learn English.
25. The majority of our students re-register for our courses because of the quality of the lessons.
26. In 2007 we taught English to over 3000 students. Our youngest student is five years old.
27. We teach around 100 Primary Young Learners aged 5 -11 at the British School in Mokotow. Students also have the opportunity to take a Cambridge Starters, Movers or Flyers exam.
28. Our Young Learner Open Day organised in Warsaw in September 2005 gathered over 1200 visitors in one day.
29. We opened our office in Krakow in 1999. Honorary guests included David Lodge and his friend Czeslaw Milosz.
30. After a fire in our office in Krakow, we moved our Krakow premises to the other side of Rynek Główny in 2005.
31. Our Teaching Centre in Krakow has already taught nearly 6000 students.
32. The British Council Library in Warsaw was launched soon after we had resumed our work following WWII, around 1946. It was the third British Council Library in Europe.
33. Ms Mary Cackowska, who was working for the Warsaw library from 1949 till 1983, was awarded the Order of the British Empire in recognition of her services.
34. Between 1971 and 1972 our library members borrowed nearly 9000 books using our distance library services.
35. In 1983 we set up a computer with an Internet connection in order to make it possible for Polish scientists and researchers to use DIALOG databases. At that time, it was the only service of this kind provided in Poland.
36. In 1984 the Library in Warsaw was lending 500 books a day and had 5000 members.
37. At present universities in eight Polish cities: Szczecin, Gdańsk, Poznań, Wrocław, Toruń, Łódź, Katowice and Lublin run libraries and information centres in association with us. The British Libraries have nearly 30,000 members.
38. The British Libraries offer access to resources for teachers and learners of English, including study in the UK, British literature, life and culture.
39. We coordinate a network of Reading Groups in the British Libraries in Poland.
40. One of our oldest customers, a retired professor of physics from a polytechnic visits our Warsaw library regularly to read newspapers and solve a Sudoku puzzle in Times. If he doesn’t manage to do it in our office, he copies the puzzle on a paper tissue and finishes it at home. He used to borrow audio materials (on vinyl) from our library and can still remember every single word from the recordings.
41. From the early 1960s till the mid 1990s our cinema hall located in our Warsaw office presented British films. In the early days, the cinema-goers were sometimes interrogated by the militia after the screenings, as their interest in the UK was deemed suspicious.
42. Royal visits in our offices: HM Queen Elizabeth II (26 March 1996, Warsaw); His Royal Highness The Prince of Wales - Prince Charles (1992, June 2002, opened the Drawing Distinctions exhibition in Krakow); Her Royal Highness The Princess Royal - Princess Anne (1991, Warsaw; February 2006, British Library in Gdansk); His Royal Highness The Earl of Wessex - Prince Edward (British Festival in Krakow, November 2004) and Her Royal Highness the Countess of Wessex - Countess Sophie (November 2004, opened the Dreams and Teams festival in Krakow).
43. Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher visited our Warsaw office in 1988 on the occasion of the 50th Anniversary of the British Council in Poland.
44. The British Council Director’s term of office is 3 years.
45. The first female director of the British Council Poland was Sue Maingay (2002-2006).
46. 90% of our staff are women. Average term of service in British Council Poland is 10 years.
47. In 1949 all staff members were entitled to a 15-minute tea break.
48. In the 1990s the British Council staff celebrated weekly ‘Thank God it’s Friday’ events. Every Friday afternoon, after hours, they would have a drink to celebrate the upcoming weekend.
49. The main purpose of our work is to build mutually beneficial relationships between people in the UK and other countries and to increase appreciation of the UK's creative ideas and achievements.
50. Realising our main goal, in cooperation with the British Embassy, between 1996 and 2004 we organised British Days in Gdańsk, Łódź, Lublin, Poznań, Toruń and Kraków.
51. We have also organised various scholarship schemes for over a thousand Poles, including Chevening scholarships and British Council Fellows.
52. 70 years of the British Council in Poland is also a rich history of fruitful cooperation with partners. Besides 23 examination centres as well as 8 British Libraries all over Poland, our partners include Polish and British governmental, non-governmental, cultural, scientific and educational organisations, present and future opinion leaders and representatives of the business sector.
53. Our corporate values are: integrity, mutuality, valuing people, creativity and professionalism.
54. When the Mystery Shopping exercise was conducted in 2004 the customer service provided by the British Council Poland was ranked first out of 110 offices in the world.
55. In the last ten years we have handled nearly 570 000 enquiries.
56. The enquiries we receive are sometimes surprising, e.g.: ‘Where are the best nudist beaches in Britain?’, ‘What is the average use of artificial fertilizers in Devon?’, ‘Where can I buy toy soldiers in British army uniforms?’ We seek to handle them all with a smile.
57. Due to the similarity of the name, customers often mix us up with the British Consulate and we frequently receive enquiries about visas.
58. Our webpage is in the top three of the most popular British Council webpages in the world.
59. Our webpage hosts several popular online forums, with topics that have been viewed up to 25,000 times, The subject of the most popular forum is studying in the UK.
60. In 2003 we sent our first e-newsletter to 513 subscribers. Since then, we have sent nearly 150 e-newsletters. The number of subscribers is constantly growing and has already surpassed 12,000.
61. We organise on average about 30 competitions a year. To celebrate our 70th Anniversary we have launched a series of competitions for Young Entrepreneurs.
62. In order to reach more people, we are currently running many international projects, which involve several and sometimes even more than ten European countries.
63. British Council Poland delivers projects in close cooperation with British Council offices in our geographical region – the British Council Poland works regionally delivering various projects with Russia, Ukraine, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Sweden, Norway, Finland, Denmark, Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Hungary and Slovenia.
64. The Europe Low Carbon Challenge project is about recruiting and supporting a group of young European people who want to make a real difference to the climate debate in their countries and internationally.
65. The Intercultural Navigators project aims to develop groups of young leaders in Europe who can easily ‘navigate’ within and between different cultures – who are aware of their own cultural backgrounds and who are able and open enough to accept, respect and understand other cultures.
66. The Network Effect project initiated by the British Council in partnership with local organisations is a series of discussion forums for bright and committed young people, with the aim of nurturing networks between these future innovators and influencers.
67. The main aim of the Creative Cities project is to give young, influential people the tools to transform their cities into better places.
68. The Challenges in Schools project aims to help schools deal with new emerging political, economic and societal phenomena, such as violence, bullying, drug abuse, the increasing usage of virtual communication and diverse ethnic and socioeconomic backgrounds.
69. Dreams and Teams is a British Council project, run since 2001 in 45 countries all around the world. The project aims to develop leadership skills and understanding of other cultures among young people through sport and international school links.
70. The English Language Outreach Project aims to enable partner organisations in participating countries to deliver English language training in appropriate, up-to-date and innovative ways.
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