Strongest sign of this being a good event: usually I feel drained after a social event, and by the end of the official program I was feeling that, but by the time I got home I was suddenly feeling social and energetic again. Did you people slip something into my drink to make me an extrovert?
Quite alike with me. I made an effort to get to know as many as possible of you on the event and it also didn't exhaust me. And I was surprised to be able to relate to everyone, even those I didn't feel congenial to or would normally have avoid to approach. Everybody was open, friendly. Every contact revealed depth and topics to relate.
I really liked the extended tag system because it totally took away the awkwardness of an unclear social protocol (shake hands, just talk, hug, whatever) and instead allowed me to give and receive human warmth - which I generally felt a lot beside the generally present positive energy.
I also made extensive use of the crockers tags which were worn by most of the participants and gave lots of feedback. Personal or general feedback which in some cases pointing out things that troubled me and that could have been received negatively. But it was accepted exclusively positively. It was appreciated in surprising ways. It partly lead to intense and long discussions. And I got some valuable feedback too.
I was also surprised by the significantly higher than expected number of people with children (at least 7 if I remember correctly). I expected to have difficulty to spur interest in my parenting presentation but quite the opposite. I was asked about his multiple times and I was urged to create or add to a rationalist parenting blog. A great encouragement.
The European Community Weekend in Berlin is over and was a full sucess.
This is no report of the event but a place where you can e.g. comment on the event, link to photos or what else you want to share.
I'm not the organizer of the Meetup but I have been there and for me it was a great event. Meeting many energetic, compassionate and in general awesome, people. Great presentations and workshops. And a very awesome positive athmosphere.
Cheers to all participants!
Gunnar
PS. I get it that there will be an upload of the presentations by the organizers and maybe some report of the results some time later. Those may or may not be linked from this post.