December 27 holiday party

We emerged like groundhogs from the Zhitomirskaya Metro, blinking in attempting to locate the Vostoki Veranda. It was exactly where it was supposed to be, but it had no signs whatsoever to indicate it was a restaurant. Once inside, it was a delight. An excellent choice.

People kept arriving long after 11 o’clock. It was wonderful to see familiar faces such as Jane, and Masha again. Olga pulled together a program that was imaginative and extremely well suited to both the physical layout and the Oriental theme of the restaurant. We played word games with the animals of the Chinese zodiac, exchanged wishes with each other for the new year, and made origami swans.

December 20 – Inner Speech Contest

What a happy way to start a weekend! A good number of people were rewarded when they braved the snow to hear three fine performances at our speech contest. Tanya introduced Graham, who in turn introduced Chief Judge Yulia Demytryshyn, judges Shawn Gazaleh, AnnaPrymakova and Mark Taylor, timers Olga Pogorielova and Harryansah Khairul, and counter Yulia Usova.

 

Viktor Fursov led off with a speech on “The Magic Of Thinking Big.” Drawing on his own life’s experience, you knows that to achieve big things you have to first dream them.  Elizaveta Korotchenko followed with “Evolution or Degradation,” a hilarious account of student life as she has seen it in her years at KPI.  Lastly, Yulia Kostereva spoke on “Cross-Cultural Exchange,” the images, true or surprisingly distorted, of Ukrainian and foreign society she has exchanged with others in the art world.

 

Liz won and Viktor took second place. They were represent the club in the all Ukrainian speech contest.  All contestants, and the judges as well, were given cute little cows with pink bows on their heads as tokens of the upcoming year of the ox.

November 30. If your heart aches….

From Heart To Heart…

 

                                            “If we fail to dare, if we don’t try,

                                            then the next generation will  reap the harvest

                                            of our indifference…”            

 

I was deeply impressed during the auction at “Art-Talkers”. The aim of the event was to collect money for the benefit of the Fastiv orphanage, to be able to invite the children to visit Kyiv and enjoy its places of interests – museums or theaters.

 

The meager attendance at the library of arts was not promising.  Just a handful of members, librarians and guests … As a rule, charity  auctions gather volunteers who have great desire to help those in need. Anyway, optimistic Levon Petrosyan with his charming smile, who has great talent as an auctioneer, inspired the audience to bid generously for the auction items.

 

What was sold at the auction? Books with poetry and prose, CDs, pictures and souveniers. The meeting was conducted in a usual form – with Timer, Ah-Counter and Grammarian. And the phrase of the day was “From Heart to Heart’. And the mission  of the auction was deep – to open our hearts…

 

And we succeeded! We gathered 700 hryvnas! If you ask how it could happen, I would reply without hesitation: our souls were ready for doing good – from heart to heart.

 

Great thanks to the librarians who presented a small booklet about literature of artificial hunger in Ukraine. A friend of our club Sergey Grebenyuk brought a very useful book of typical English phrases. Yulia Usova, Tanya Knyazeva and Olya Pogorelova prepared books, pictures and CDs.  To our delight, in an hour all the items were sold.

 

Great thanks to everybody who took part in the auction and donated money for children.

I hope that sooner or later we’ll make a new step in doing good – from heart to heart.

 

Lucy Povaliy