The Institute of Lifelong Learning (ILL) organizes more than 60 various courses, professional, interest and language courses. Jindřich Rézner completed a number of them in just 4 years. Which was his first course and how he uses the vast amount of information he has acquired? We asked.

You are undoubtedly the record holder in the number of completed courses organized by ILL. Can you count how many of them you have already attended?

I’m afraid to count all the courses myself because the number would probably take my breath away. As of 2018, there have been countless. The staff at the Institute of Lifelong Learning (ILL) gossip about me that I attend everything, but I don´t think so. You could say that my preferred courses include those in agriculture, forestry, wine growing and food science in general. But I also enjoy courses in economics, management, IT and technology. I have also taken most of the interest courses that are in some way related to nature and healthy living. As far as language courses are concerned, so far, I have only taken English for beginners and the Summer Spanish course for beginners. What hasn’t really appealed to me so far are the courses in the field of personal development and courses for teachers.

Our records show that you attended a total of 33 courses. Do you remember in that respectable amount which course was your first?

I remember my first courses very well. They were from the field of viticulture and wine growing and my interest in good food and wine brought me to them. I wanted to learn more about the cultivation and processing of grapes, about wine tasting and also about serving wine properly. I had my premiere at the Fundamentals of Winemaking course, when after the first day of theoretical instruction at ILL, we went to Lednice for the practical part. Together with Dr. Prokeš, who led the course, we visited two wineries, the operations at the Institute of Viticulture and the winery of the Faculty of Horticulture, and we saw the production of wine from the first processing of the grapes to the final bottling.

Tell us which courses are among your favourite ones …

I am interested in natural sciences, and I also like to cook. That’s why one of my favourite courses is food – meat processing and cheese making. A very nice course was Not an Egg Like an Egg. Really memorable courses were Making Healthy Pasta, Making Confectionery, Making Sourdough Bread and White Bread. It is a great pity that such interesting courses are no longer on offer. 

I remember very fondly the Basics of Beekeeping course, which was led by Dr. Šenfeldr, who tried to initiate us into the secrets of the “kingdom of bees” at the family apiary on the outskirts of Brno and showed us beekeeping in practice.

I was also very interested in the more time-comprehensive Course for the Performance of General Agricultural Activities. It was a very professional course, led by Associate Professor Marada and Associate Professor Havlíček, in which one could get a comprehensive preparation for the performance of agricultural activities, get acquainted with environmentally friendly methods of organic farming and its modern trends. I gained a lot of useful knowledge there that I like to use in professional discussions with my son. He graduated from the Czech University of Life Sciences in Prague and has started working as an agronomist in an agricultural cooperative.

How do you use such a vast amount of knowledge you have gained? 

My whole professional life has been devoted to economics and accounting, so I use most of the knowledge I gain from economic and management courses in my profession. For example, the knowledge from the course Assessing the Economic Health of a Business is very useful to me. Within this course, Mrs. Rajchlová showed us, among many other things, how to find as much information as possible about business partners and their financial and economic situation in the Collection of Documents at the regional courts registries before a business contract is concluded. Even though I have been a member of the Association of Accountants in Olomouc since 1993, it was only the Associate Professor Rajchlová who explained to me in a clear and logical way how the consolidation of financial statements between companies that are economically and personally connected in a group can be carried out in practice. One of the great advantages of the economic courses for me is the fact that they keep me up to date, because the regulations and laws in the field of accounting and taxes change frequently. Without lifelong learning I would probably be soon lost.

What else do you appreciate about lifelong learning at Mendel University?

Lifelong learning courses give me the opportunity, “under one roof” of the university, to get a huge amount of the latest and professional information from lecturers who undoubtedly belong to the group of the best experts on the given issue in the Czech Republic. I am glad for the opportunity to discuss with them the problems that course participants face straight in practice. It is also useful for me to get a lot of new contacts of co-participants of respective courses who already have some practice and experience in the given field and who are both, from the Brno surroundings and South Moravia, as well as from the “other end” of the Czech Republic.

ILL has been organizing courses for over 15 years. Both, the general public and university graduates subscribe to them and thanks to these courses, they get up-to-date information about news and trends in their fields. In the beginning, there were barely 20 courses on offer, today ILL prepares more than 60 of them. Over the past 15 years, more than 10,000 interested participants have completed lifelong learning courses, and vast majority of them more than just one.