38 AUSTRALASIAN DENTIST EVENTS Tell us your story, who are you and how did you get here? I’m Mark Cunich, the managing director of Unconventional Conventions. We’re an Australian family business that organises dental and medical conferences in exotic locations around the world. I’ve heard we’re known in the dental community as “ e Antarctica conference organisers”, but we’ve actually be running conferences all around the world since 1980. My mum, Dr Margot Cunich, always loved travelling but couldn’t nd the time between working and raising a family, not to mention the CPD requirements. At that stage, there was no one running conferences like these, so she started organising them as a passion project from our garage. Her philosophy was always about encouraging work-life balance (before that term was even coined). What an incredible initiative. And how did you get involved? I’ve been involved since I was 10 years old, packing conference satchels and carrying suitcases on tours. I joined the business full time about 15 years ago and have since taken over the operations. e business slowly grew to have 8 sta and was organising a dozen conferences per year at its peak. Wow, that must have been hard when COVID hit, how did you manage? When COVID hit we had about 20 The Unconventional story We’re so glad to see Unconventional Conventions back up and running dental conferences after a break during COVID. Now we sit down with the director to see what it’s all about. conferences fully booked: everywhere from Antarctica to Jordan and from Kenya to Cambodia. We obviously had to cancel or postpone all of those events, which took most of 2020 to organise. We ran a few conferences here in Australia along the Kimberly Coast and around Tasmania but have downsized dramatically. What does Unconventional Conventions look like now, post-pandemic? e forced break actually turned out to be a blessing. I had been so focused on growing the business and providing the luxury concierge experience at all hours for our clients that I didn’t register I was su ering from major burnout which had signi cant health e ects. In the past three years I’ve made a tree change, got married (to one of our dental delegates), and now we have a toddler. I’ve sat down and reassessed my priorities. It’s rea rmed for me that achieving a healthy work life balance is a core value of mine. Being able to facilitate that for our delegates and for my own family is important to me. So, we’ve started back up again, but in a much more modest way, while maintaining that personal touch. So glad you did! We are all itching to get away. What are your top-rated destinations to return to? Antarctica is for sure the number one place I would return to again and again. It probably sounds like I’m just trying to sell our next conference but Antarctica is truly unlike anywhere else in the world. e destination speaks for itself. What can we expect from registering on your conferences? Aside from the obvious bene ts of travelling to amazing places, I think it’s the comradery amongst the group. When you go on incredible adventures and learning experiences with like-minded people, you often end up with lifelong friends. We hear from so many delegates about their continued friendships over the years and often have delegates returning for a dozen of more conferences over the years. We organise everything for you. All you have to do is learn and enjoy the trip of a lifetime. u
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