AMTA NC Chapter Blog

I had the good fortune to serve as one of the North Carolina Delegates present at the 2009 House of Delegates (HOD) at the AMTA National Convention.  The HOD is a wonderful exercise in democracy providing a format for individual and chapter input in our member driven organization.  Each chapter is represented in the HOD.  The number of delegates for each chapter is determined by the number of members in the chapter.  North Carolina is considered an extra large chapter and therefore has five delegate slots.  Beyond that each delegate’s vote is weighted so that they accurately represent the members of their chapter.  For example, NC has about 1600 members represented by 5 delegates.  So my vote counted for about 320 of our members.

The HOD considers two types of proposals, Recommendations and Position Statements.  Position Statements are being ably covered elsewhere in this newsletter so I will discuss Recommendations here.  Recommendations are nonbinding suggestions to the National Board of Directors (NBOD).  They are one means of communicating the concerns and ideas of individuals and chapters to the national leadership.  Anyone can write a recommendation and instructions can be found at http://www.amtamassage.org/member/chapters/hodrecommend.html .

This years HOD entertained two recommendations.  The first recommendation http://www.amtamassage.org/member/pdf/Recommendation1.pdf sought budget authority to hire and train full-time field representatives to help chapters promote AMTA to schools and students.  After spirited debate this recommendation passed the HOD and will be delivered to the NBOD.

The second recommendation http://www.amtamassage.org/member/pdf/recommendation2.pdf proposed changing the national by-laws to give increased powers to the President’s Council.  This recommendation was voted down after brief debate.

This year was my fourth opportunity to attend the national convention as a delegate.  Over the years I have seen the HOD continue to grow and improve.  Serving as a delegate is a great experience and I recommend it to all AMTA-NC members.  To become a delegate you need to file a resume http://www.amtanc.org/images/stories/chapter_officer_and_delegate_resume.pdf and sign the Volunteer Code of Conduct http://www.amtanc.org/images/thumbnails/amtachaptervolunteercodeofconduct.pdf .  Elections are held during our annual Convention which will be in August of 2010.  Becoming a Delegate is a wonderful way to get involved and serve the Chapter and its members.