Group-Analytic Contexts, Issue 80, June 2018

Newsletter – Summer 2018 49
the host country;
d. Robi was a link between the local MC and the SC. However, Kurt
attended and was a link to both. Katrin, as co-chair, was a link between
SC, MC, and LOC.
e. Two consultants - Elisabeth Rohr and Thomas Mies - these were
not necessary and were both originally on the SC.
Operation
We had two face-to-face meetings but needed a third despite the
expense. The first meeting was Group Building plus explaining our
purpose. At this meeting we also clarified the theme for each day in
line with the Symposium title and gave each day its own title. We also
selected the Keynote Speakers and Respondents with alternatives in
mind in case the selected people were not available. The SC chairs
then invited them in line with the finance agreed with the Treasurers
of the MC.
The SC Chair wrote guidance notes for the keynotes (e.g.,
length of time for self and respondent; dates by when lectures needed)
and later more detailed protocols for Chairs and for the Respondents.
These can be forwarded to the next SC if wanted!
The second meeting was to organise the layout of the
programme and begin to think about the Abstract Booklet. This
meeting was also to set up members in pairs so that each pair would
have responsibility for reading the abstracts sent to them and assessing
whether they needed editing and whether they were suitable for the
Symposium.
Sue did quite a lot of editing, as English was the Symposium
language and some abstracts needed translating as well as editing.
Each pair of two SC members would be responsible for one
of the days and later to select and brief chairs for the programme on
their day. These chairs allocated abstracts through a Dropbox system
and then retrieved the responses to guide them about the next step. SC
needed teaching about how to use this. Not everyone was able to use
the Dropbox system.
The SC agreed to meet every six weeks for 1 hour on Skype.
This would improve contact during the whole process and keep the SC
much better informed throughout the planning. Being in regular
communication is very important in building up the Symposium
programme. At certain times the SC needed more meetings - every 4
weeks perhaps - as the abstracts arrived and we needed discussion
about them with the allocated pairs. The Chairs of the SC also met
again separately to clarify the layout of the programme and look at the