On 17 July 2025, Dame Melinda Simmons, who will take up her post as UK Ambassador to Poland in August, visited the Polish Social and Cultural Centre (POSK) in London. During her brief visit, she met with POSK’s chairman, Marcin Kalinowski, and secretary, Włodzimierz Mier Jędrzejowicz, who presented the history of this largest Polish institution outside the country. They also discussed the most important issues concerning the daily life of Poles living in the UK.
The talks took place in a cordial atmosphere in the Joseph Conrad Room, after which Dame Melinda Simmons visited the lending and reading room of the Polish Library POSK, where she spoke to the staff. The Secretary General, Anna Stefanicka, spoke about the collections at the Józef Piłsudski Institute. The future ambassador also visited the POSK Theatre and POSK Gallery.
Dame Melinda Simmons is due to take up her post as British Ambassador to Poland in August this year. Born in London in 1966, the Ambassador comes from a family with Polish, Lithuanian and Jewish roots and is a member of the Reform Synagogue in Finchley, London. She joined the British Civil Service in 1998, taking up a position with the Department for International Development (DFID), then the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and the Secretariat of National Security. She served as British Ambassador to Ukraine from 2019 to 2023.
Wiktor Moszczynski
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