Reflection on the Connect Conference idea by Che Wagner

Connect Conferences 2003-2010

Reviewing a golden past
The Connect Conference has inspired class 12 students four times in Dornach in the past (2003, 2005, 2007, 2009). The team of the Youth Section at the Goetheanum (Leadership of Elizabeth Wirsching) with Reinoud Meijer founded and established the Connect Conference along the question: Are we all part of the same picture?
These conferences were shaped by classes from all parts of the world with their cultural diversity – and their similarities. Although all participants (500-700 depending on the year) originated from different backgrounds they could all find access to the various contributions of the conference. In a sense each one of them was a colour and gave the contrast to what made the bigger whole, the Connect Conference.

The first three Connect Conferences were carried by the thought that all professional and personal coherence is a microcosmic image of the macrocosm of society of which they are a part.
One of the tasks of Connect was to give a bird’s-eye view on society in order to re-establish to lost connection between micro- and macrocosm and to grant the activity of an individual its meaning. This aims to sharpen(awaken?) the senses fort he necessity that all participants of society – which ever specialisation they are in – to co-work with the rest of the world.

To reach this goal the participants could meet inidividually in smaller groups during the workshops and discussions but a larger portion of the time they spent in the big group, in lectures, performances, in the night cafe and during meal times in order to allow a the feeling of being connected to grow.

In lectures the participants were given an overview of the state of the world (macrocosm) and an impulse by interesting people (active in society, social, alternatively professional) and in workshops they were shown different possibilities (professiona) to specialize fort he world (micrososm). The theatre and eurhythmy performances in the evenings as well as in the night cafe built the global cultural frame around the conference in ist diversity but also realizing instantly the similarities of global humanity. The Connect Conference offers to be a platform for very different cultures to understand that they are part of a bigger picture of the world.

After the Connect Cofnerence 2007 Reinoud Meijer founded the Youth Initiaitive Programm (YIP) in Järna, Sweden and could not carry on the conference in Dornach. YIP and the idea of „Community Campus“ are congruent extensions of the Connect-Idea, with the difference that they are long termn projects.

Connect Conference 2009
After the loss/sacrifice of Reinoud Meijer from Dornach Katharina Ludwig, Caitlin Balmer and Che Wagner took on the leadership of the conference fort he year 2009. The original idea of this meeting for class 12 students was kept, but the vision this was based on was revised.
A class 12 student finds himself before a very important point in life: before the question in which way he can give himself to society and the world from now on. In which waycan he give to the social organism which has held him all through his life so far? How can he position himself in the exchange-ratio?? of giving and taking? What is his profession or his vocation, what his way to access the world? In earlier conferences we found that this question was mostly dealt with in methods of inspiration (inspiring people telling about their own lives). We decided to built more intuitive and initiative elements into the programm of the conference in order to challenge the participants directly into experiencing themselves as responsible parts of this conference and thereby take home an experience of their own role in society which moved the source of the inspiration into themselves and away from an example person on stage. Instead of the workshops that were originally led by professionals we installed workshops and presentations held by the class 12s themselves (senior projects). The senior projects were additionally exhibited in the Goetheanum.

The bird’s eye view was kept up in the talks that took place twice a day in order to give the participants the „confernce-feeling“ and to keep up the element of the macrocosmic perspective, all participants gathered in the big hall fort hese talks.
Instead of looking at specific ways of accessing the world, professions presented by professional in workshops, the afternoons were filled by conversation groups, a space to exchange amongst each other as well as amongst generations, each group was lead by a more experienced person (convesation leaders). The conversation topics were kept open but should have the element of reflecting on society and ist challenges and possibilities in today’s world. This way we wanted to creat a healthy balance between the inspirational aspects (morning choir, talks, evening performance), intuituve-practical aspects (12th class workshops, open-mic night café, helping for the food) and reflective moments (conversation groups, food breaks) of the day. This was meant to mirror what a society should be like which is interested in what the potential of the individual can be and that still givs a clear common framework. When the Connect Conference is looked at as a social organism these steps are the necessary ones in order to support the individual participant in taking charge of his part of making the organism as a whole – to live it!

The next step
What can be said about Connect in certainty ist hat it is an undertaking carried by students and youth. The enthusiasm fort his gathering with other students who come from similar lives but different worlds is gigantic. Although the gathering of different cultures is a viable argument fort his meeting the question has to be raised what effect the airplane mobility has on the global situationa and if there should be a regional answer to this? Could the Connect Conference be held regionally on all continents in the future? And could there be a bigger meeting of ex-Connectees every few years only?
To give so much space to the class 12 project was a big risk from the organizers side (to entrust the class 12 students with the full repsonsibility to carry Connect), but it can be seen as a full success! It shows the need of the students to get the chance to show who they are and the potential they have after and during their time in school.
They urgently want to become active themselves, although it is advised to still give them a fram for it. The exhibition and presentations allowed the participants to exchange/meet and engage with each other on different levels.

It is essential to maintain this opportunity fort he students to meet peers and to include the students themselves in the process of shaping the event. This can open a space in which a very own, active way of accessing the world can grow as well as a social dimension can open, and understanding of cohesion of and responsibility for the society we are a part of.
Che Wagner, June 15th 2010