Help for Ukrainian refugees in Wolsztyn.

First of all, I should point out that I have no connection with Wolsztyn Experience. These two e-mails arrived via a friend in British Columbia who has visited Wolsztyn. It's a chance for the railway enthusiast community to help Ukrainian refugees through a the efforts of a railway heritage organisation. It might only be a drop in the ocean, but every little helps.

I have contacted the forum moderators who are happy that this item is posted. Julian Worth is aware and grateful that I could spread the word of what Wolsztyn Experience is doing.

Thanks for reading and in anticipation of any donations.

Neil Kearns (AKA Romsey)

Begin forwarded message:
From: Julian Worth < -- >

Subject: Wolsztyn and the Ukraine Crisis - 8th March

Date: March 8, 2022 at 12:33:15 PM PST

To: < original recipients deleted >


Hi Everyone,

First of all, a huge thank you to those who have already donated - several thousand pounds have already been received, a fantastic response in such a short time.

The main purpose of this email is to tell you that the first Ukrainian woman and her children are already living in the Wolsztyn House on ul Gajewski. Two more families will be arriving there shortly and - such is the scale of the challenge - Howard has rented a second house in Wolsztyn, for an initial period of three months, which will accommodate a further four families. We will thus be supporting seven Ukrainian families for several months and quite possibly longer.

As you'll have picked up, over a million refugees have already crossed the border and - unless Putin can be stopped - it is clear that millions more will be arriving in the next few weeks. Some are moving on to Western Europe but many are likely to remain in Poland, in the hope they will be able to return home. To put this in context, the numbers already in Poland are equivalent to a city the size of Birmingham being created overnight.

Poland is an impressive country and the Poles ever-resourceful - and memories of living under Russian control are still fresh in the memory, either personally or via parents - but the scale of this challenge is vast. Accordingly, if you've not yet donated and are able to do so, your support would be greatly appreciated.

On administrative matters, I'm aware there have been some problems paying money into the WE Ukraine account, but we've now got to the bottom of this. An existing special account (as distinct from the usual trading account) has been repurposed for the appeal - the account details are correct but the bank has been very slow in changing the title of the account. They said today that this is imminent and assured us that monies can be paid in and will be held in this account, separate from the trading account. In the meantime, your bank should be able to recognise the link between WE and the account details. My apologies if this has caused you a problem.

Kind regards,

Julian


From: Julian Worth <-- >
Sent: 06 March 2022 18:52
To: < original recipients deleted >
Subject: Wolsztyn and the Ukraine Crisis

Hello Everyone,

I'm sure we're all watching the events in Ukraine with horror and feeling for the refugees who are streaming over border into Poland and other neighbouring countries. The railways of Europe have stepped up in response to the crisis and, as well as bringing hundreds of thousands of people out, 600 pallets of aid have been moving into Kyiv every night from Prague.

The scale of the refugee exodus is enormous and will challenge the ability of the West to accommodate and feed all the women and children involved, whilst their husbands and fathers stay behind to bravely defend Ukraine against Putin's evil and reprehensible invasion. Poland faces a particularly difficult situation and is moving thousands of people away from the border every day - a train collecting 800 people ran from Poznan to Przemysl and back yesterday.

Wolsztyn Experience is responding to the call for help and will be housing and feeding at least one Ukrainian family and maybe more, including their medical and educational costs, for at least 6 months and potentially longer. Even at Polish prices, this will not be cheap but Howard and Alex are determined to help, for which I think they deserve great credit.

Some of you will, no doubt, have contributed to the Disasters Emergency Committee general appeal, but we are appealing for donations to help with the cost of accommodating and feeding Ukrainian refugees in Wolsztyn. Any support you feel able to give would be hugely appreciated and a special bank account has been created for the purpose:

The Wolsztyn Experience Ukraine Support

Barclays Sort Code: 20 40 71

Account: 40020044

Reference: (Your surname and initials)

We appreciate fully that not everyone will be in a position to contribute, but any donation you feel able to give will go entirely to helping the refugees - unlike many charities, no admin costs will be deducted. In addition, we are happy to transfer funds we may be holding from you against a future trip if this is easier for you - please let me know if you'd like to do this. If you have any queries, please don't hesitate to ask.

In passing, as it's a small matter compared with what's happening in Ukraine, we are currently intending to go ahead with the September trip to Szczecin and the Baltic, as this is on the western side of Poland, many hundreds of miles away from the Ukrainian border. However, we'll need take stock of the proposed April/May 2023 trip in the light of emerging circumstances later this year.

Kind regards,

Julian