I am sorry for not enough clear explanation. Mea culpa ...
"The truth is out here" link from S&T site is leading straight to the list of the links of BK organizations or BK supporters such as: Michael Timothy, Blissful Music, Relax7, The Janki Foundation, Just a Minute, BK Publications and of course to the BKWSU site as well. I don't think this happened by a mistake. Besides, the BKWSU Poland itself encourages and invites to the Jola & Mirek events on "Cooking with Soul/Gotowanie z duszą" (2007) and names it as a one of their "National Programs".
Here is the link from the BKWSU Poland subsite of BKWSU:
which is exactly a copy from the S&T site word by word.And the last sentence in that page is clear enough:
"Aby dowiedzieć się o kolejnej edycji spotkania „Gotowanie z duszą”, skontaktuj się z najbliższym ośrodkiem".
(To get more about the next meeting on "Cooking with Soul", please contact with the nearest BK centre.)
I hope that I made it clear now. It's not a neutral event on vegetarian cooking and promoting a healthy lifestyle by some celebs. It is a well prepared, smart BK marketing.
Why that concerned me so much and decided to create a topic on it? First, their names (Jola Sloma and Mirek Trymbulak) were, and probably still are mentioned very often in private talks among the Polish BKs, management, teachers, sisters-in-charge, etc and they are given as an example, "look, this is how should looks the perfect example of 'servicing' - not directly, think of that people are very smart nowadays, think of their interests, hobby - they are keen on fashion, cooking, 'healthy lifestyle'. They seek for something unique and creative - that is your target group!". If you would be interested, I own a copy of a mp3 cd from one of the BK retreats, where "Sister" Jola and "Brother" Mirek were invited and were talking about their beginnings in BK, even though nobody never announced them as BKs in public (IMHO, they ARE). Please PM me. Unfortunately the whole audio is in Polish, but I could try to make a transcription in English.
As for your question about the quantity of BKs in Poland, I just don't know how many are they in general (you know, the "we are an organization that have no members"
). In my BK life, the most numerous group after that in Warsaw what is rather obvious because of the main centre, was in Gdansk and then in Lodz. Those were the strongest BK centres in Poland in the 90s. I remember visiting Warsaw few times in the 90s, when the Warsaw hasn't their own place for centre (they started to build it), all the programs, BK celebrations, everyday morning classes and other events in 1995-1999(?) were held in the Club of Garrison Command Warsaw. I never counted how many of us were there but I suppose that at least 30-50 in the morning classes, even more in the BK programs and celebrations.
At the moment, the BK centers "don't exist" for few years. They were turned into "Meditation Galleries", but still are in Poland. BKWSU has four "centers" at the moment. Here is the actual list:
Source:
BKWSU Poland and:
BK Meditation Galleries.
In the past the BKWSU had also their centres in Lublin, Cracow, and Szczecin. They also were making some preparations to create a centre in Wroclaw but it failed. The "youngest" centre is that in Katowice.
You ask about atmosphere? Well, if BK Halina Paradela is one of the Sister Jayanti's pupils and therefore Dadi Janki's as well, you can just imagine that among Polish BKs is also an atmosphere of uncertainty, terror and fear, lies and manipulations, but no one has the courage to do something about and stop that at last. BK Halina is untouchable, like a "holy cow". She is the National Coordinator of BKWSU Poland from the very beginnings until now.
If I find some more time I'll try to expand the issue started in the topic "BKWSU Poland" about expelling from the BKWSU Poland a person who is a PBK at the moment, abusing her and threatening.