EUROMOVERS held its 2019 conference in Copenhagen. Steve Jordan acted as MC for the event and sends his report.
I defy anyone of a certain age to be able to visit Copenhagen without, for a moment at least, bursting into a few bars of that classic Danny Kaye song, Wonderful, Wonderful Copenhagen. It just has to be done. And the truth is, it really is a wonderful town. It’s safe, clean, entertaining, sophisticated, with a history to inspire and just a hint of edge that makes any city, real.
It was here, in the Scandic Copenhagen, that EUROMOVERS held its 2019 conference. And a very fine affair it was for around 100 members, prospective members and guests from around the globe. Despite its name, EUROMOVERS is not a purely European organisation anymore.
The business sessions were, as at most conferences, a mix between housekeeping (the general meeting and officers’ reports), guest speakers and awards. This year the guest speakers were particularly interesting. Richard Dolan from Greens in the UK presented the Simply Store concept as a way of taking back some of the storage market share from self storage companies. Francesco Argirò from Bliss Moving in Italy gave an inspirational performance about goal setting and organising your workload, especially during the busiest times of the year. Alistair Murray from Relocation Support in the UK added a little insight from the relocation perspective and a trio of technology companies - byLogic, Moveware and Buzzmove - presented their wares.
But the star of the show was undoubtedly Ray daSilva who had the group transfixed with his presentation about the role of the organisation as part of its individual members’ sales processes. Not only was the audience spellbound by Ray’s performance (anyone that has seen him in action will know he knows how to work a crowd), it certainly sparked much more than a passing interest. Whether it will cause EUROMOVERS a step shift in its member services or not is impossible to say, but it did sow a great many seeds.
Organisations try to be different; they crave uniqueness in a world where little is new. But EUROMOVERS is unique in at least one aspect, as far as I am aware, in that it monitors the performance of all its members by asking members to rate each other out of five on their operations, administration and financial responsibility. At the conference those achieving above average scores are recognised and the lead scorers awarded certificates of achievement. EUROMOVERS also surveys customers (over 86,000 in 2018), 85% of which rated the service received as ‘excellent’ and a further 12% saying it was ‘good’.
EUROMOVERS also makes a big fuss of new members and gives them time on stage to make sure everyone knows who they are. As far as I am aware only PAIMA does the same.
I have been to a few EUROMOVERS conferences now and there is one thing that is, if not unique, certainly striking about them. Everyone participates and everyone sticks together. The business meetings are packed and the social events are fully attended. Dinners on the first two nights were in the same restaurant in the hotel which, in a city packed with distractions, could have created some fragmentation of the group. But it didn’t. EUROMOVERS really does behave like a family, enjoying each other’s company and taking on the experience together. A raffle of locally-sourced goodies raised €3,000 for a local cancer charity.
Away from the business hall, perhaps the most memorable moment for many this year would have been the last night’s entertainment at Wallmans, a theatre just a short walk from the hotel. Here EUROMOVERS joined around 500 others for an excellent dinner (how they serve 600 people simultaneously with such exquisite food I shall never understand) and a fantastic stage show. Forget X Factor, if you want to discover unknown raw talent, look no further. The next time you are in Copenhagen, be sure to go.
Congratulations to Thomas Juchum, the EUROMOVERS general manager, the Board and Keld Gissemann, from European Removal & Storage in Copenhagen for his recommendation.