From: Nancy Toner Weinberger
<weinberger@mindspring.com>
Sent: Tuesday, January 7, 2014 3:02
PM
To: 'Nancy Toner Weinberger'
Subject: Meeting Invitation. RSVP by
January 1st! Important- please read this email.
Importance: High
Sent: Thursday, December 19, 2013 10:26 AM
You are invited
to attend an exploratory meeting with other individual and proprietary CE
Providers in North Carolina on Wednesday, January 22, 2014 in Raleigh, NC. Meeting
place will be announced, based on how many plan to attend. We will start at
10AM and end no later than 4:00PM. I will send out hotel suggestions
after we have decided on a meeting space for those who may need a hotel.
Raleigh was chosen because it is most centrally located in North Carolina.
Why are we meeting?
CE Providers as a group do
not currently have a voice in the decisions that are being made about
continuing education for LMBTs in our state. These decisions are being made
about our livelihood and our work, about which we are passionate. These
decisions are being made by the State Board and the National Organizations that
influence them. There is also influence brought to bear by the massage
schools. Where is our voice? What are our opinions? What do we want? What kind
of influence can we bring to bear?
Right now the NC State Board
is considering what to do about approving CE Providers in our state. Should
they approve us in-state? Should they continue with the approval process by the
NCBTMB? They have already asked the FSMTB to develop an approval program for
continuing education providers, and a task force has been chosen to develop the
new program. This is happening right now.
When input is desired, these
organizations go to other organizations, not to individuals. Each organization
has its own policies and set of interests. They get together and apportion the
pie with compromises and agreements. As an example, consider the
FSMTB-sponsored group that met and subsequently recommended that CE license
renewal credits exclusively be done online through the FSMTB. This conclusion
came about with the support and inclusion of the Alliance for Massage Educators
and the AMTA. Note that the NCBTMB, the organization that has been approving CE
Providers since 1996, was not invited to participate in the process resulting
in these recommendations. After the general outcry against this proposal, the
AMTA and the Alliance both published articles saying they were not in support
of the proposal- the very proposal they participated in crafting!
My point is- who can we trust?
We can only trust ourselves to represent our interests. We need to be
more informed, and in a timely manner. We need an avenue of discussion and a
canvassing process to find out where we stand amongst ourselves. And pathways
to communication with other organizations in the professions. Did you know that
10 written objections to a new rule proposed by the NC State Board is all it
takes to send that proposed rule change back to the drawing board?
Proposal for this meeting
1.
Discuss what is
happening right now that may affect us and our livelihood.
2.
Discuss ways to
be informed that can minimize use of our individual time. Can we get our facts
straight? And separate fact from opinion and rumor?
3.
Do we want to
come up with some innovative ideas for our own approval process?
4.
Do we have
questions for NCB, the NC State Board, others that we would like to have
answered?
5.
Do we have
recommendations for what CE licensure renewal requirements should be and
why?
6.
What should be
the shape and scope of this organization? (Can we keep it light and friendly
and respectful, and avoid the power struggles and animosities that seem to be
abundant in our profession’s political organizations right now? Can it serve a
focused purpose? Is anyone even interested? How can it be easy and consume as
little of our precious time as possible?)
Your response is
requested!
Are you coming?
Yes or no, by January 1st please so I can arrange a
meeting room for us.
If you are not coming,
please tell me why not? Is the
date bad for you, are you not interested, are you no longer teaching CE, etc.
If you have anything you
would like on the agenda, please let me know. Or any ideas or whatever. I will
send out another email after January 1st when I see how many are interested
in gathering together.
Who is invited
·
Individual
continuing education providers
·
Organizations
and their instructors that teach proprietary programs, such as Upledger,
Trager, etc.
Who is not invited and why
not
·
Massage
schools- Massage schools do not provide any well-developed CE of their own-
they hire us. Or teach basic courses. Their interests in CE are somewhat
different from ours.
·
Health
and/or Educational Centers that have diverse CE program offerings and do not
themselves develop CE. They hire us, or bypass hiring us to allow persons who
are not willing to go through the approval process teach anyway.
We may wish to bring a few
people in to answer questions for us, perhaps from NCBTMB, or the NC Board, but
that would be the limit of their function at this meeting.
At the meeting we can discuss
who should be a part of our group and come to future meetings, should we decide
to actually BE a group!
Sincerely yours,
Nancy Toner
Weinberger
Dynamic
Equilibrium
309 Oakwood Court
Youngsville,
NC 27596
919-562-1548