From the President

by Susan R. Meyer,
MMC
president@certifiedcoach.org

Change, Change, Change

It seems as if the world is always changing. In January, the US inaugurated
Barack Obama for a second term as President. In the Netherlands, Queen Beatrix
stepped down and passed the monarchy on to her son, Willem-Alexander. In my
area, politicians are already preparing for the next mayoral race. I’m
sure each of you has your own list of significant changes, local and global,
large and small.

Change involves three phases – an ending, a middle and a beginning. Over
the past several years, The IAC has been involved in continuous change growing
out of a strategic planning process that was open to our members. We have let
go of a number of things that simply didn’t work any more, gone through
periods of turmoil and chaos as we experimented with changes, and finally, are
settling into a new beginning.

Endings

As the IAC continues to grow and evolve, some relationships will change and
some will end. This month, we are losing two valuable members of our team. Uta
Guse, who has done an outstanding job of heading the Licensee Committee, is
unable to continue in that position. During her tenure, we have achieved many
things including calls for the licensees led by the certifiers, clearer guidelines
for licensees, better recognition of licensees on our website and, finally,
a licensees-only section of the website.

We are also losing Linda Dessau as editor of the VOICE due to budgetary constraints.
Linda has done a wonderful job of coordinating the VOICE, our blog posts and
our social media presence. While the editorial part of her responsibilities
will be assumed by someone else, most of the incredible work Linda has done
for us will be taken over by volunteers. On behalf of the Board—past and
present—I want to thank Linda for her many contributions that have improved
the quality of the newsletter you are now reading.

Middles

As we have moved through the change process, there has been a certain amount
of chaos, as expected. We’ve been asking all of you to bear with us through
website difficulties, to make suggestions and to participate in new activities.
We’ve made continuous changes in how we support our members, chapters
and licensees. We’ve experimented with new ways to keep in touch with
all of you. We’ve improved our infrastructure to better support the membership.
We’ve added member benefits.

Beginnings

We have been working on improving our website and adding services. This month,
we’ve added a section just for licensees that will make it easier for
them to communicate with each other, share information and find documents that
will assist them in providing additional support to all of you who are their
students.

For now, our LinkedIn
group and the Member Chats are our primary ways to engage in dialogue with
other members. We already have pages for our chapters on the website. As we
move into the year, we plan to add a forum as well.

We want to be sure that we are fulfilling our role as an international association.
Teo Jin Lee, with the support of Ed Britton, has coordinated IAC activities
for what we have dubbed the Asian Crescent. This group of chapters, covering
Dubai, all of India and China, Hong Kong, Malaysia and Singapore now meets regularly
to share ideas. Pepe del Rio has been busy creating a similar group for Latin
America. In the near future, one of our members will be establishing a virtual
chapter for Canada. (She knows who she is—next month I’ll share
her name!)

Let
the Celebration Begin!

As part of our 10th Anniversary celebration, we are pleased to announce two
groups of recipients of lifetime memberships in the IAC.

Past Presidents

Michael (Coop) Cooper
Barbara Mark
Natalie Tucker Miller
Angela Spaxman
Bob Tschannen-Moran

Founding and Continuous Members

Nina
East
Barbra Sundquist
Natalie Tucker Miller
Anna Dargitz Hodge
Julia Stewart
Kerul Kassel
Donna Steinhorn

Anna actually has the distinction of holding two lifetime memberships; Natalie,
three. That mystery will be unraveled next month in our official 10th Anniversary
issue of the VOICE. Stay tuned!

With
warm wishes for your success,
Susan R. Meyer

 

Susan R. Meyer, MMC is President of Susan R. Meyer, Coaching and Consulting
and of Life-Work Coach. She provides personal and executive coaching
and facilitates seminars on topics including life planning, emotional
intelligence, leadership development, communication, and coaching
skills for managers. www.susanrmeyer.com.