3 Words for the New Year
Happy 2016 to all! I hope this message finds you all well and considering an abundant year ahead, both personally and professionally. We have many exciting events and challenges that lie ahead, and I am happy to take this opportunity to share some news and plans with you all.
In my message of last January, I blogged about what Chris Brogan and Michael Reynolds use as an alternative to the typical New Year’s Resolution: The 3 Words for the New Year, rather than the typical list of resolutions. In 2015, I chose Focus, Growth and Advocacy for the Chapter. In so many ways, I am very proud of the work of the MA Chapter leadership as they took these guiding principles and put them to work. We focused on what we do best-provide quality education and networking opportunities. We grew our first ever 3 day conference-and even had non members from other professions join us! And we continued to support and work with our Chapter lobbyists at Lynch Associates to advocate and protect the AMTA, massage therapists and the public at the state level.
For 2016, the guiding principles I am considering for the Chapter are Focus (again!), Simplify, and Align.
We believe it is mission critical to strengthen the things we are good at: 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.
Again, this year the event that I am most excited about, is our 2nd multi-day/concurrent session IDEA (In Depth Education for All) 2106 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, Judith Delaney, Greg Hurd, Kate Peck and more! Please support your chapter and your practice by joining us for our inaugural IDEA conference. It will be April 1-3 , 2016 this year-we heard you all that May was really tough with graduations, weddings and other spring family events. Please SAVE THE DATE!
The National board and Chapter Relations workgroups have offered many ways to improve and simplify the work of volunteers at the chapter level. We are looking at many of these recommendations, including having the national accounting office write the checks and reconcile the checkbook each month. This has met overwhelmingly positive feedback across the country and our treasurer, Patty Jaworski had worked with the national office and is really looking forward to having these administrative tasks done by the paid staff in Evanston. Be assured, the budget decisions are still made at the chapter level.
Lastly, your leadership team is working to bring our programming into alignment the expectations for the entire AMTA organization and our fellow chapters. For chapters - that focus is on education, the state-wide regulation of massage therapy where needed, community building and easily accessible communications related to that programming.
Take a few moments, right now, and choose 3 Words that will help shape and guide 2106 for you. Upon reflection, mine for my personal growth and business are Abundance, Focus and Listen. I look forward to integrating them into my 2016 business plan and and personal action plan. I’d love to hear the 3 words you might choose to guide you in 2016~ email or text me !
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 Needham in April and please don’t hesitate to email me at lisaparenteau@gmail.com. Namaste.