Voy joined the club on the 1st of May, and he had already introduced himself earlier in the year with a great talk to us about his homeland, Poland - “Europe's underrated treasure”. This week Voy spoke to us about his life growing up in former village located close to the city of Gdansk, studying at the University, his early career work life, his move to Dunedin in 2019 and his hobbies and interests.
Voy told us that the area he came from is known as the Trójmiasto - the three cities of Gdansk, Sopot and Gydynia. Gdansk is a very old city and port, dating back 1020 years, and still has many famous old buildings, bridges and port structures. Voy showed us photos of a very interesting housing block where he grew up in the seventies. His apartment was one of many in a 1km long ‘wavy’ apartment complex housing 6000 people. The kids had access to large playground areas where Voy as a child spent 90% of his spare time playing outdoors, even during winter, sometimes cold enough to create spectacular frozen coastline skating areas! In the summer Voy loved holidays visiting woodland areas, in particular a region called ‘Cross Lake’ where you can still find old wooden homes dating back to the 15th Century. Interestingly, this region is where many of the Polish community who migrated to New Zealand were from.
At university in Gdansk, Voy studied logistics, and went on to work in Gydynia pointing out that his new spacious flat was in a far less ‘crowded’ space' than where he grew up! After 10 years working in logistics for warehouse equipment and supplies, he moved on to work for a software company that was later acquired by Amazon. He and his wife Magda led a very busy life working and commuting long distances that the work life balance meant spending time with their young daughter was compromised. The couple moved to Dunedin in 2019 where Magda found work at the University and Voy at Silver Fern Farms. While they miss their home town and family back in Poland, they enjoy the easier work life balance and access to the outdoors that living in Dunedin brings.
Voy told us that in his spare time in Poland he loved being a DJ at popular nightclubs and being part of huge musical events such as Gydnia's “Open'er” a four day open air music event. Voy also loves playing Board Games- watch this space Dunedin Rotarians!
Thanks, Voy for your very interesting and revealing ‘Who am I’!
