Group-Analytic Contexts, Issue 80, June 2018

Newsletter – Summer 2018 37
has written a bit more about this way of organizing and containing
the conference. Thinking about it now and reading the posts in the
three fora, for me we were a container which more and more became
a container contained by those who were surrounding us. A little
story about our feelings which I think Kurt will allow me to tell:
When we were talking side by side to the first large group session we
both had the same feeling and spoke: “now they will hang us!”
• To introduce and then to use the liaison officers was something very
helpful! It was important that they were not members of one of the
committees but related to both of them, always in relation to their
present tasks.
Marita did a good job in bringing the German Institute's together,
helping them to raise their voice and to become a group which was
present at the symposium. I think this was one important part of
German presence in the programme below the keynotes and the
respondents. A remarkable thing was, and perhaps it also can happen
in Barcelona, the regionally characterised part of the programme: In
the workshop about the German institutes, only German participants
showed up. The German-speaking institutes themselves were very
happy about their performance.
Marina Mojovic, working in another way, perhaps provided the most
addresses and internationally did a lot for reaching possible
participants! She wrote the most letters to people, asking them to
send the letters to colleagues (and the colleagues to other colleagues)
and to put me in cc. I collected them and used them when we had to
write a new letter. Writing letters, many letters probably was very
important for the number of participants. Marina created a kind of
snowball system and more and more we got a growing number of
addresses. I think especially Marina did a very good job in
distributing the program and encouraging participation. All the
addresses are still on my PC.
For Barcelona: I think these two different ways of fulfilling the
liaison job are both very important for participation and for
contributing. Perhaps it will be possible to carry these two jobs on
the shoulders of a group, a liaison task force.
• I think it was good to have a highly qualified professional graphic
designer and I think we are still learning how to use such a