WTG Jeff!
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Delegate’s Report
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Call for Candidates!
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What’s Going On!
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Government Relations Report
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Treasurer’s Report
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Calendar of Events
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All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for a good man to do nothing. ~Edmund Burke
President’s Message March 2007 Greetings and salutations! It has been a while since the last newsletter, and I hope everyone has weathered the winter with little or no negative effects. As many of you know, we are losing the current Immediate Past President, Jeff Smoot so that he can tend to his new duties as National Member at Large. Jeff, thank you for your years of service to the Oklahoma Chapter of the AMTA, and good luck on the National Board! In reflection, one thing that Jeff taught me, and that I hold very close is how important it is to understand the mission statement of the AMTA – to promote the art science and practice of massage therapy; and to appreciate how diverse the field of massage therapy is, especially in Oklahoma. We are the leaders in the massage therapy community, and being that, we draw a lot of fire and criticism from a lot of directions for our stances on issues, our pursuit of just legislation, and the fact that no other national massage organization has elected leadership. I am proud to be a member, and to volunteer with the organization. Granted, there are issues that I feel we need to pay more attention to, but that is my opinion – but that is another facet of our organization I feel that we need to appreciate
- open meetings where the membership can discuss and agree, disagree, or agree to disagree, but most importantly, listen to each other just the same. No other massage organization can claim to address this the way that the AMTA does. We thrive on communication, and we need to address the needs of our members. We list our email addresses and phone numbers in each newsletter, hoping you will contact us. We are thrilled when you do. As you can see in Scott’s GR report, a lot of our focus has been on legislation, but there are other things going on. We have many volunteer opportunities to participate in; sports massage events and On-Site Massage Events, and there are meetings planned to discuss the future direction of our chapter. I hope you can become part of the process and join us at one of the upcoming meetings in Tulsa or OKC. We have some great members and the attention that the legislation has provided is giving us an opportunity to answer the question “what exactly is the AMTA?”. That is a question I think that we, as members should ask ourselves – and pay attention to how we answer. Understand, we have members that have experienced a lot of things in this industry, and we need to listen and learn from them. We have members who are new to the field that bring their enthusiasm and fresh ideas that we need to listen to as well. We need to realize that it is everyone one of us each day, each massage session, each continuing education class, each opportunity we have to represent the field that we all strive to innovate and blaze trails in this quickly evolving profession. Christopher Deery, NCTMB President, AMTA-OK
We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence then is not an act but a habit. ~Aristotle