Held at NATAA Nashville Conference
October 29, 2005
Minutes
The meeting was called to order by General Coordinator Dianne Maki slightly after 5:00 PM. Over 45 members were in attendance.
1. BRAGS AND CELEBRATIONS:
Membership and Conference Participation
We already have three new members as of this conference. 30 states in the US and 11 other countries are represented in the conference attendance. More people said they will be sending in their dues shortly.
Felipe Garcia, co-chair of the Conference Program Committee, acknowledged the contribution of presenters and participants to the success of this conference.
NATAA Education Project and ITAA Grant
Anna Long reported on NATAA’s proposal that was written earlier this year and submitted to ITAA in Edinburgh, Scotland in July.
The project is to conduct systematic training programs in the US
We plan to work through existing TA networks and fill in areas that do not have TA people locally
The grant, including this year’s seed money already transferred from ITAA, is for $167,000 over two to three years to develop programs to introduce clinicians, educators, organizational development professionals, and counselors to TA.
The programs will be built around the TA Modules structure that has been presented in various locations over the past few years.
Anna says there are many ways to participate in this project and we invite members to indicate their interest in doing so.
Prison Project
Denton Roberts reported that through Edie Beaujon, we are exploring a partner project with a Master’s in Divinity Program to bring a communication training module into Sing Sing prison. If all goes right, there could be an HBO documentary under the auspices of the highly respected Southern Law and Poverty Center in Atlanta of which Edie would be one of the producers.
We will know more about this project in a few months. It could serve 20 prison inmates annually, offering them an introduction to TA skills.
The NATAA Council has referred the development of the project to the Education committee, to be managed as part of the Education Project.
2. HOW COUNCIL AND MEMBERS WORK and WHAT WE NEED
Felipe Garcia emphasized the US in NATAA, reminding the members that we need to make sure we are fully involved in the organization.
The Coordinating Council works with and for the membership.
The nominating committee is made up of Ray Quiett, Mark Wise, and Lucy Freedman.
The Council consists of five rotating elected positions, from which the specific functional coordinators are appointed, and six regional representatives. Currently the elected council members are Dianne Maki (General Coordinator), Lucy Freedman (Coordinator of Communications and Acting Coordinator of Programs), Vern Masse (Coordinator of Administration and Finance), Felipe Garcia, and Denton Roberts.
Additional at-large members can be appointed by the Council annually. Currently these are Fanita English, Jerome White and Morris Haimowitz, In addition, the immediate past General Coordinator is on the council ex officio. Lyman Rigby resigned this role which is currently being covered by Val Chang, who was previously General Coordinator.
Ray Quiett announced the completion of his term as Southwest Representative and confirmed that his replacement will be Toppie Lincicome.
Dianne announced that Bobbie Barry has been selected and has agreed to serve as the Midwest Representative, which has been vacant.
Other regional representatives are: Southeast –shared by Shirley Jaeger and Mark Wise, Pacific –Anna Long, Rocky Mountain – Abe Wagner, and Northeast – Barbara Little Horse.
Committees are to be drawn from the membership. We welcome members’ participation and request that those interested in being involved give their names and addresses to the appropriate council member. Lucy Freedman and other council members will follow up with volunteers on committee membership.
3. EDUCATION COMMITTEE REPORT
In addition to the exciting Education Projects described previously, Ray Quiett has successfully put together our CEU program and registration with the National Board of Certified Counselors. Ray announced that CEU certificates are available for this conference and that people who would like CEU credit should submit their completed attendance forms to him to obtain certificates for their records.
4. NATAA NET REPORT
The NET is our newsletter. Several issues this year were edited by Lucy Freedman and Anna Long, respectively. Angela Berquist was introduced as the new editor for 2006. Anna Long will be the editor of the remaining issue for 2005.
Editors will gladly work with authors and contributors on articles they submit. Everyone is invited to write for the NET. Contact information for Angela will be available on the NATAA.ORG website as well as in the upcoming issue of the NET. She receives email at zadekim@comcast.net.
5. WEB COMMITTEE
Members are encouraged to subscribe to the Professional Listings service at NATAA.ORG (requires payment of a fee and submission of your contact information and a profile).
Photos are requested for the website and can be emailed to webmaster@nataa.net for posting.
Please include captions for the photos you send.
The newly designed website will offer new functions, to be added as time goes
on. We invite and encourage people to join the web committee (several volunteers
offered to help). Interested people are asked to contact Lucy Freedman at lucy1@syntx.com.
Suggestions for the website were made as follows:
Val Chang – suggests that conference presenters write a paragraph or two on the content of their Nashville presentations.
A “bright ideas” section to be a place for posting ideas by members.
Laurie Weiss volunteers to be a writing coach for anyone who wants help preparing their material for the web.
6. FUTURE CONFERENCES
ITAA will be holding a conference in Istanbul, Turkey in 2006.
NATAA has proposed co-sponsoring a conference with ITAA in 2007. Felipe Garcia offered to be the coordinator for people who will volunteer to help organize the conference. A sign-up list was started.
One of the possible sites is the Asilomar Conference Center in Pacific Grove, California, on the Monterey Peninsula an hour and a half south of San Francisco and approximately forty-five minutes from the San Jose airport. It is a beautiful and reasonably priced seaside retreat center. The dates available at Asilomar are the week including July 4 (July 2-8), 2007. A majority of those at the meeting said that they would attend a conference held that week. Jean Clarke noted that this date seemed ‘anti-family’ as many people attend family gatherings at that time. Although Asilomar may only be available for us that week, one week later was said to be a better choice.
We have received assurance that there will not be a European conference competing with those dates. (NOTE ADDED 12/1/05: We have learned that EATA will in fact be having a conference on those dates and our plans will need to be reconsidered. –lf)
Dianne Maki announced that we will be returning to Frenchman’s Cove in Port Antonio, Jamaica January 29-February 5, 2006, for the 11th Annual NATAA Gathering. People are encouraged to send in their registrations. CEU’s will be awarded. Information on the Gathering is posted at WWW.NATAA.ORG.
7. BUDGET REPORT
Vern Masse, Coordinator of Administration and Finance, reported that the budget for 2006 is currently being prepared. The treasury currently has about $58,000 in the bank, with expenses for this conference and other obligations yet to be paid. Anyone wanting detailed budget information is invited to contact Vern.
8. OTHER BUSINESS and ITEMS OF INFORMATION
It was noted that there are 400 ITAA members residing in the US. NATAA has something over 100 members. Everyone was asked to contact ITAA members and colleagues to ask them to join NATAA.
Sam Gaft recalled having sent a payment to a US organization and wondering how come that wasn’t dues to NATAA. It was clarified that his payment was a charter membership contribution to the Americas TA Association, or ATAA, which was formed several years ago and held a conference last year in Calgary.
Ki Roberts asked about how TA identity is presented in articles and trainings, etc. (no record of the ensuing comments).
Dianne Maki indicated that a list of conference attendees would be posted on the Web, based on information collected by Suzanne Wilson at the conference. Jo Lewis requested that people be asked before their information is posted on the web. This will need to be sorted out and action will be taken accordingly.
Margaret Reed asked about Scholarship funds available for TA training, so she could inform her colleagues who would be interested. This is available from ITAA’s Scholarship Loan Fund, of which Elaine Childs-Gowell is the chair. Applicants need to be members of ITAA.
The meeting was hastily adjourned at 5:50 as the hotel needed to set up the room for another function.
Respectfully submitted,
Lucy Freedman
Coordinator of Communications
November 19, 2005
