Denmark set the location and the four Nordic hosting countries set the tone at the European Enneagram conference in Copenhagen with the theme “Crossing Borders”. And no less than 169 guests and presenters from 6 continents and 22 countries made it a great event for all.

An international collaboration

It was the first time the four countries joined forces in arranging a conference. Denmark was in charge of the project management, but it was the joint efforts that made the conference possible.  “It has been a pleasure working with – in this case – these lovely ladies,” says Mette Hvied Lauesen, president of IEA Denmark. “The great thing about it is that it has brought us closer together and I’m quite sure we’ll do other things together in the future.” The cross-border collaboration was an actual fact – the bookshop was organized by the Swedes, the physical programme was put together and designed by the Norwegians and the Finns took care of the conference website while the Danes took care of the venue and the registration etc.

Difficult choices

The programme was put together carefully trying to balance knowledge levels and different applications of the enneagram – the objective being that there was something of interest for everybody.

As usual at a conference with several simultaneous tracks, there are always hard choices to be made: Should I go and see A or B or perhaps C? Fortunately, the existence of that dilemma only shows that there were plenty of interesting sessions. This dilemma was also reflected in the many comments along the way.

Evaluation

After the conference, everybody attending the conference was encouraged to fill out an online evaluation questionnaire and the results speak for themselves

• 71% found that the sessions met their expectations
• 74% found that the conference programme had the right amount to chose from and the right amount of different tracks (70%)
• People came to meet – either to meet up with old friends (73%), to make new friends (80%) or to talk to the professionals (54%).
• Half were professionals – only 4% were beginners to the Enneagram
• 64% only came because of the conference – whereas some (14%) combined it with a holiday or with further education (10%). This was surprising to the organizers who expected the geography to play a part. It didn’t.
• 35% came to have fun
• 70% came to see all the international presenters
• And no less than 90% found that the level of the conference was about right. .

Even though it is a lot of work to organize a conference it is also very worthwhile work and it gives an opportunity for everybody to connect across borders.

If you are on Facebook, please look at Dirk Cloete’s album full of pictures from the event (https://www.facebook.com/dirkcloete/media_set?set=a.10152971079502131.561242130&type=3