Serfenta’s Summary of 2024
It’s high time to sit with a cup of coffee and to prepare a Serfenta’s summary of 2024 year! Oh, what a year it has been! We hope that 2025 will be also fruitful for you, with wonderful collaborations and joint actions. See for yourselves how our 2024 went.
Serfenta Nostra, EUROPA NOSTRA!
This is our most significant achievement not just of 2024 but of the entire 17 years of our work with cultural heritage and basketry craftsmanship. This year, the Serfenta Craft Revitalization Model was awarded as one of 26 winners from 18 countries, out of hundreds of projects – an immense honour and another success for this team.
Thanks to this outstanding award, Serfenta has brought recognition to the Cieszyn Silesia region for the first time. As a result, the city of Cieszyn and the entire region gain extraordinary recognition of European importance. The award is called the Oscar, or even the Nobel of cultural heritage, and is highly significant in the eyes of UNESCO and similar institutions worldwide. Serfenta won over experts with the scale of raising public awareness and understanding of cultural heritage.
With the support of sponsors, the city of Cieszyn, and the local government, we organized an in-situ ceremony in Cieszyn and also took part in the Europa Nostra Gala in Bucharest. The medal embedded in our headquarters is on display in Cieszyn. Hip hip, hooray!
Substantive Work – Lectures, Presentations, Talks, Conferences
This year, we extensively shared our knowledge and experience working at the intersection of cultural heritage and business.
We led various meetings, presentations, and lectures:
- “The Values Hidden in Craft Still Needed Today” presentation at Excellence Day in Bucharest, Heritage Summit
- Business Model Presentation for Eindhoven Design Academy
- Series of meetings for the City of Krakow: Social Innovation – Good Practices and Inspiring Examples, Economization: From NGO to Business, Where and Why Ideas Meet the Market, The Place of Craft in the Contemporary Market – New Solutions for Creators
- Organized a one-day conference for the City of Poznań: “Passion and Business” – how to sell cultural heritage modernly in Poland and worldwide – Serfenta’s unique model of craft sales in practice
- Participated in the international CYFE project in Brussels with the Laja Foundation and Made in Europe
- Presented the Business Model to participants at the Folk & Craft University in Wola Sękowa
- Dąbrowa Business Incubator invited us to Biznes Chillout, to learn how to transform NGO activities into a thriving company
- Presented our work on cultural heritage at the Mazovian Heritage Forum
- Presentation at Heritage Innovators Days – Urszula Szwed
- Participated in the Picobello project in Spain and presented the Craft Revitalization Model
- Lecture on Polish basketry for Taitoliitto from Finland, accompanying the exhibition Baskets from Near and Far in Finland
- Presented the Business Model and Polish cultural heritage at an international seminar in Sweden (Landskrona)
- Conducted workshops at the University of Silesia – Social Innovations in practise, common with Maria Garus
- Presentation at the 6th Academy of the University of Silesia: Teachers – To Teachers. Craft experience as a modern way to learn craft.
Phew! These events alone would be enough, but this summary doesn’t end here!
New – Individual Consulting / Personal Branding Development
Last year, we had the honour and pleasure to mentor the wonderful mindful artist – Paweł Szeibel. It was his personal development scholarship funded by KPO. He decided to dedicate it to his growth in many areas.
Paulina Adamska Łucja Cieślar Urszula Szwed mentored Paweł in the following areas:
- Building personal brand
- Digital competencies, crafting messages, and navigating social media
- Business development
But that’s not all! Paweł also improved his basketry skills. However, not with us – but with our friend Carlos Fontalez Ortiz in Spain. He is integrating it with his artistic plans.
We are aware of our extensive experience in these areas and the living proof that we can share it. If you too want to grow in the New Year and need exactly this – maybe this is where our collaboration will begin in 2025!
Serfenta’s Growth, KPO, and ReCharge
In the second half of 2024, we focused on developing Serfenta, attended training, created new business proposals, planned for the future, and created entirely new initiatives with our expert team. As a result of these efforts, something entirely new was born – HI! Heritage Impact!
We often mention that we sustain ourselves from the funds generated by implementing the results of our business model. However, sometimes we still rely on grants – in the second half of the year, we used funds from the National Reconstruction Plan (KPO) to strengthen our business activities. This was the first time in 3 years we applied for a grant! We do this purposefully and consciously to be able to develop and add extra value to what we do daily. Our lead advisor for this project was Urszula Szwed (Ula, thank you for everything you brought to Serfenta this year!).
We participated in business and substantive training to continue developing our work. Our advisor for this process was Urszula Szwed. We assessed Serfenta’s business potential and worked on a proposal based on the already designed and multiple award-winning Craft Revitalization Model. This is an important step in Serfenta’s goal of becoming a strong, financially independent organization in the market. We also participated in the international ReCharge Next project funded by the EU for the same purpose – organizational development.
WORKSHOPS – CRAFT EXPERIENCE SUMMARY
BASKETRY CRAFT EXPERIENCE
So, where are the workshops in this summary? NOW YOU WON’T BELIEVE IT! THIS YEAR, WE ORGANIZED and, together with our amazing group of instructors, conducted:
- 42 workshop days!
- 42 workshop days for groups or individuals
- 6 study visits/business model presentations, Finland, Sweden, Romania, Poland
- Entrepreneurial lessons for primary schools, high schools, and secondary schools on how to calculate the value of a craft product
- Group workshops for children, youth, adults, and seniors; we visited winter holidays, libraries, cultural centres, foundations, and other associations
- We celebrated the 20th anniversary of joining the European Union and participated in city days and urban games, organizing flow stations at your events
- Individual workshops for designers (straw, rush)
- Workshops for students at the Academy of Fine Arts in Katowice and the University of Silesia.
To experience Polish basketry craft and Craft Tour, we hosted visitors from:
- Canada
- USA
- Hawaii
- Guam
- Czech Republic
- International groups
We also took our workshops to Sweden and the Czech Republic, and this year we plan to go to Germany!
WOW! PHEW! Let’s fill the new calendar together 🙂 Thank you for being with us!
Special thanks to our amazing workshop team – Katarzyna Kowalska, Małgorzata Bieniek, Daria Czauderna, as well as Iza Sirek and Ola Mendroch, Sabina Witek, who did all of this with us! #workshops #basketryworkshops #craftexperience #heritage #polishcraft #serfenta
Around 800 people participated in our workshops and study visits this year, and over 500 attended our business presentations outside of Cieszyn.
MEDIA: Where haven’t we been…? Media Year Summary!
We appeared on:
- TV: Watch here
- Radio: Listen here
- An article by Paulina was published in the UK Heritage Alive!
SERFENTA SHOP
Yes, amidst all of this, we still run a shop where you can buy unique products from Polish basketry masters. We invite you to make one of these baskets your lifelong companion.
Summary of 2024
Looking at everything that happened and what can only be seen when we sit down and write the year’s summary, we can hardly believe it… does this year really have only 365 days???
