Babskie Spotkania Bristol

We are a grassroots community group for Polish women, established in October 2018.

It started as a way to socialise, make new friendships, exchange experiences, support each other, share our passions, hobbies, and simply spend time together. From each other, we gain a sense of belonging, which allows us to maintain our language and traditions, our way of living and looking at the world, here, far from our home country, where we started our lives from scratch, away from families and best friends.

We are friendly, welcoming, and non-judgemental. Our meetings are open to any woman wishing to join us, regardless of her age, religion, political views, sexual orientation or disability, and indeed our members come from various walks of life. We have among us a university lecturer, therapists, entrepreneurs, cleaners, health care assistants, managers, artists and retired teachers. We are wives and mothers, single, divorced, straight, gay, young, middle aged and elderly. And we all meet under one roof, respect one another, and have each other’s backs.

Currently our aim is to support Polish women in creating a wide and sustainable support network which will mean that they can thrive and develop as individuals, take care of their physical and mental health and live happy lives of expats who call the UK their home.

We organise about 30 various events each year– ranging from meetings for fun or to host guest speakers, walks in and around Bristol, outings and trips around the UK.

Some of the initiatives are:

• yearly Christmas, Easter and group anniversary celebrations,
• face to face workshops with a psychologist, herbalist, policewoman, migration advisor (Brexit), speech therapist, first aid advisor, reflexologist, homeopath, make-up artist, dietician (just to mention a few)

         Series of online sessions:

• “Woman with a passion” – among our guests was a traveller, a self-taught cake artist, a tea-lover who lives in China, a granddaughter of the founders of Polish scouting
• “Motherhood” – meetings with e.g. psychologist, midwife, breastfeeding advisor, bilingual expert
• “May travel” – we met female travellers, who enlightened us to and showed us some of the most beautiful corners of the world
• “An aware woman is a safe woman”: we hosted online meetings with a Police Officer, representative of a Polish charity supporting women and children experiencing domestic violence, a Polish member of staff at SARI – a Bristol-based charity supporting people experiencing discrimination, we also talked about making sure that our immigration status is taken care of in the face of Brexit
• Online session to share tips on managing finances during the cost of living crisis

        We also:

• support local NHS by making face mask adapters and organizing blood donation
• run annual Cancer Research’s Race for Life
• organize fitness classes
• visit theatres, exhibitions and museums
• donate to a local food bank
• organized a communal library, where we exchange books – this service is open to any person who is interested in reading
• support women who are fighting cancer, are homeless or mourning

       We love:

• our biking trips to Forest of Dean and kayaking on River Wye
• and going a bit further to places like Salisbury, Cotswolds, Beacon Brecon, Ilfracombe, Kew Gardens

If you are a professional, and you know of any Polish-speaking women who would benefit from joining our group, feel free to share this website or our Facebook fan page with them.

Should you or they wish to get in touch with us, please e-mail us at witaj@babskiespotkania.co.uk  

Thank you!