Happy 2015 to all, and welcome to what I hope will be another great year for the AMTA-MA Chapter. We have many exciting events and challenges that lie ahead, and I am honored to be your President as we enter this busy year.
Albeit artificial, the New Year always gives us an opportunity to review the past to make some small adjustments or some really big changes on our horizon. Michael Reynolds recently blogged about choosing 3 Words for 2015 rather than the typical list of resolutions. I love this as it allows for reflection and focus on concepts that can guide our thoughts and decisions for the upcoming year. Michael’s were: Bold, Persistence and Decisions. Upon reflection, mine for my personal growth and business are Plan, Courage and Reinvest. I am committed to keeping these top of mind as I move through the year and make decisions, big and small. 3 words that I will uphold for our Chapter are: Focus, Growth and Advocacy. Take a few moments, right now, and choose 3 Words that will help shape and guide 2105 for you. Email or text me~I’d love to hear about them!
Leading with the concepts of Focus and Growth-I'd like to share some organizational news with you. We had a successful and inspiring strategic planning retreat in September, under the guidance of Marybeth Berney, the AMTA-WA state President. We took a hard look at our current committee structure and made a decision to gradually implement a shift from a Committee structure to a Program structure. This will allow the Board of Directors to be more of a governing board and the Program Chairs will have more autonomy to budget and run their action areas. This has really increased the involvement level of members in WA state and we are hoping it will be replicated here. Committee to Program is:
Communications-Program Director: Kristen Lutz
- Website
- Calendar
- NMTAW
- All media
- newsletter/blog
- social media
- email
- print
Government and External Affairs-Program Director: Mary White
- Advocacy
- Coalitions
- Chapter lawyer
- Day on the Hill-Coordinator-Deb Nunges
Practitioner Education and Development-Program Director: Deb Baker
- All education events
- One&Done Or IDEA 2015 Conference (In-Depth Education for All)
- Dianne Polseno Scholarship Fund-Coordinator-Kelly Dalbec
Volunteer and Support Development-Program Director: Deb Nunges
- Commission on Candacy
- Education of current and prospective leaders
- Succession planning
- Awards
- Non member outreach
CSMT-Program Director: Gordon Pilotte
- Team member and Leader training
- Deployment organization
- Red Cross relationship
CSMT Member Event planning and implementation
- Member Experience: Program Director: Gail Dobinski
- Membership activities-Coordinator-Kelly Dalbec
- School visits
- Adopt a School
- Chapter meetings
- Mentorship program
- New Member programs
We are still fine tuning this major shift and ‘trying it on’ over the next few quarters. If you have any thoughts or questions about this shift, please drop me an email.
On the AMAZING NEWS Advocacy front: On January 6, 2015 Governor Deval Patrick signed the American Massage Therapy Association, Massachusetts Chapter (AMTA-MA) bill into law. An Act Relative to Licensing Massage Therapists (formerly House Bill 185 and House Bill 2030) prohibits unlicensed massage therapists from advertising massage services online or through social media. This electronic advertising component of the law is critical to ensuring that the Commonwealth has more tools available to shut down illicit practices and further raise the bar of the professional practice of massage therapy. In addition, the new law clarifies that the Massachusetts license exemption for out-of-state massage therapists providing services at a charitable or sporting event in the Commonwealth is available over consecutive days for multi-day events, such as the Boston Marathon and the Pan-Mass Challenge. Special heartfelt thanks to our amazing Government and External Affairs Program (formerly Law and Legislation committee) Chair Mary White and members Deb Nunges and Richard Wedegartner for their persistence and commitment. Read more about the bill here.
It is important to strengthen the things we are good at-and education and networking are what really makes AMTA stand apart from all other massage therapy organizations. So as a leadership team, we continue to place a majority of our focus on delivering top quality, leading edge educational opportunities and events, not only to our members, but also to all massage therapists in the state. To this end, we have 4 great weekends of continuing education lined up for you in 2015 starting with Ben Benjamin in February at the Crowne Plaza in Natick.
The event that I am most excited about, is our first ever multi-day/concurrent session IDEA (In Depth Education for All) 2015 Education Conference. No 3 hour teasers here! All of the sessions are full 8 or 16 hour classes so that our attendees can really dig into a modality and integrate it into their practice on Monday. We have James Waslaski, Ruth Werner, Michael McGillicuddy, Core Stones, Massage for Special Needs, CPR and more! Please support your chapter and your practice by joining us for our inaugural IDEA conference.
Lastly, I just returned from a Chapter President's meeting in Chicago Jan 10-12. The National Board of Directors and staff shared some new policies and procedures with us that ultimately will make our work as chapter leaders easier. But the most important thing, once again, was the experiencing the energy, commitment, knowledge and diversity of the Chapter Presidents that represent our association. I am humbled and awed to be part of hate group! It is my honor and privilege to serve you all and I welcome and look forward to hearing from you with boths joys and challenges! I hope to see you all in Natick in February and please dont hesitate to email me at lisaparenteau@gmail.com.