Our conventions always have a theme.  We choose them to emphasize what we believe each convention gives to our members.  This year, “Quench Your Thirst for Knowledge” is the perfect theme, because we offer more continuing education classes than ever and because best methods for building professional competency is one of AMTA’s strategic focuses.  So, you can count on this convention further building competency.

Hello everyone and welcome to AMTA’s National Convention in Atlanta, Georgia.

Our conventions always have a theme.  We choose them to emphasize what we believe each convention gives to our members.  This year, “Quench Your Thirst for Knowledge” is the perfect theme, because we offer more continuing education classes than ever and because best methods for building professional competency is one of AMTA’s strategic focuses.  So, you can count on this convention further building competency.

Your Board of Directors, the officers you elected to lead AMTA into the future, is devoted to serving our members, while advancing the massage therapy profession.   

To achieve that future, they have selected three goal areas of priority focus this year:

• To enhance the member experience by delivering value that earns member loyalty and commitment;   

• To advance professional competency by ensuring AMTA members have the competencies, skills and professionalism to be successful;

• To advocate and influence by proactively pursuing licensure in every state  

Let’s look at how the association is achieving each of these goals. 

To make every member’s experience of AMTA fulfilling and positive, and to help you become better massage therapists with successful practices, AMTA listens to you and what you tell us you believe is important.  The Board and staff also listen to what’s happening in the profession.

Here is what we have heard:

The benefits you receive from AMTA are the main reason you join and remain a member.  And what drives your loyalty to AMTA most is our massage information center followed by our high quality periodicals MTJ and Hands On newsletter, and then our top quality liability insurance.  You want good member service, great networking opportunities as well as exceptional education, exhibits and social events at the convention.  Your experience at the chapter is also important.  We heard you say you would like that to improve.

To make a meaningful impact on your experience with AMTA, we have renewed our ongoing commitment to improve the value of your membership.  One of the most valued benefits is your professional and general liability insurance.  We’ll be making some changes to improve the service to you.  It will mean faster certificates of insurance and it will be easier to obtain additional insurance memos.

The most consumed, highly-valued and visible benefit of AMTA membership is – MTJ. I’m sure you’ve noticed how the magazine has improved this past year.  The improvements reflect what you told us you want. 

• More continuing education content  

• A regular column about massage research

• Bonus MTJ content, available exclusively online  

• An opportunity to voice your opinions on hot issues in massage therapy

• And, more articles on how to help you and your clients stay healthy

More than ever, we are receiving positive feedback about how valuable this benefit is to you.

The importance you place on AMTA’s massage information center has led us to expand the resources available on the AMTA website. With more MTJ content and Hands On content now online, you can look up the articles you need at any time.  Our plans also include expanding other information on the website to answer your questions about the massage profession and business practice. 

We have a brand new shopping mall on the website too.  We’ve negotiated up to a 30% discount for you to buy products through the shopping mall.  These products include everything from massage tables, to lotions and oils, to home-study courses. 

And we’re doing even more to enhance your membership experience.  We are making a major investment in a new database system at the National Office.  It’s a high tech approach to provide you with a high touch feel.  And it will mean improved service to you, giving you more personal service, while helping you use your benefits better.

One of the unique attributes of AMTA is the involvement of our members as volunteers.  Volunteering provides a way for members to get involved and be active participants in carrying out the future direction of AMTA, as well as delivering ongoing programs at the local level through our network of 51 chapters. 

We’ve created the Volunteer Development Program as one way to further enhance a volunteer member’s experience. The program ensures volunteers are continuing to build their skills and competency to fulfill their roles and responsibilities.  Better training for volunteers will help to bring members a better member experience through chapters, while enhancing the experience the volunteer has.  The Volunteer Development Program includes Chapter Volunteer Orientation (fondly known as CVOP), online learning for volunteers, and chapter leadership training.  

I encourage you to volunteer for AMTA and experience the full benefit of your membership. Volunteers are needed for chapter and national boards, committees, work groups, and for events. 

The Volunteer Center on the AMTA website gives you a way to post your resume for volunteer opportunities and to search available volunteer positions at the chapter and national levels. It’s in the Member Section of the website.  Just log on to get started as an AMTA volunteer.

Now, let’s move onto another prioritized goal area of AMTA – Advancing Professional Competency.  One of the ways members can create distinction in the market place for their services is to have the competencies, skills and professionalism to be successful.  What defines competency for a professional is something that evolves as the body of knowledge for the profession grows.  A profession-wide, agreed-upon body of knowledge includes the full scope of what practitioners in the field know and do, including knowledge, skills and abilities.

This is something our profession hasn’t found agreement on yet.  In an effort to find that agreement, AMTA’s first step has been to do its homework with internal stakeholders.  We are asking about your views on the best methods for building professional competency in the profession.  In fact, at convention this year, we are continuing the concept of listening circles, giving attendees an opportunity to voice their opinion on a subject.  I urge you to find time to attend one of our listening circles at this year’s convention, on this subject of how to build professional competency. 

The listening circles are scheduled:

Today, from 5:00pm to 6:30pm, immediately followed by another session from 6:30pm to 8:00pm.  And, our last session will be tomorrow from 6:00pm to 7:30pm.

All of the listening circles will be held in the Henry Room, on the second floor, West corridor.

Please try to attend.  Your insight is needed.  

We are also increasing the number of continuing education opportunities for you and we are offering you educational opportunities in new ways.  In addition to the classes here at convention, we have created online classes, so you can meet some of your continuing education requirements without having to travel. These online classes have been very successful as more members find how easy it is to take the courses and learn from home or their offices.

Also on our website, we’ve added new professional development lessons that help you benefit from the knowledge of other massage therapists.  This professional development section is already one of the most visited parts of the Member website.

AMTA’s third area of focus this year is Advocacy and Influence to improve the regulatory environment through greater portability.  We do this so you are a more respected professional who one day will be able to move your practice to another state without having to figure out if your years of experience are accepted there.  Your National Board, with input from government relations volunteers, staff and other professionals, has defined the must haves and should haves for state laws. 

With this information clarified and established as the basis for our work, the AMTA Government Relations Program was officially launched this past spring.  We are working with chapters to achieve our goals of consistency in massage therapy licensing.

I’m delighted to tell you that in a recent survey, 90% of members said we should continue our government relations goal of portability of massage practice.  Today, we have legislative activity in 11 states, providing lots of opportunity to make a positive move forward in creating, revising and promoting fair and consistent laws.

As we are pursuing our focuses on the member experience, professional competency and advocacy and influence, we also are expanding our relationships with people, organizations and regulators whose areas impact massage therapy.  We continue to build our relationship with the Integrated Healthcare Policy Consortium (IHPC), its Academic Consortium of Complementary and Alternative Health Care task force and other complementary, alternative and integrated healthcare groups. 

In May, AMTA representatives attended the North America Research Conference.  This summer, we worked with ACCAHC to provide massage therapist input in an effort to better understand research, standards and requirements in various CAM and healthcare professions. ACCAHC’s work is to determine a collaborative model for CAM with allopathic medicine, primarily aimed at medical schools.  This is an area AMTA identified years ago as being necessary for massage.  And, through ACCAHC we are working on your behalf to make this happen. 

Now, though your membership dollars, AMTA will be financially supporting the efforts of IHPC to hold a consensus conference on massage for low back pain.  This is planned to take place in 18 to 24 months.  The goal is a federal statement that indicates massage is effective for low back pain. 

Consensus conferences require a body of evidence to support them.  Many in the profession have been working towards this idea, participating as researchers or advisors in randomized controlled studies on massage for low back pain.  If this goal is reached, Medicare and Medicaid should have enough data to rationalize the coverage of massage for low back pain. And, because Medicare and Medicaid coverage influences what health insurance companies cover, expect in a not too distant future that massage for low back pain will be widely accepted by the healthcare community.

Relationships such as these will improve the integration of massage therapy into a variety of settings, while creating better practice environments for our members.  That’s one reason we also have been networking with ISPA.  Massage is the number one treatment income for spas.  Spa owners are concerned about how to find competent massage therapists who understand the philosophy and demands of the spa business.  AMTA is working with ISPA to clarify the training a massage therapist needs to work in a spa. We are also working with ISPA to improve the ways spa directors interact with massage therapists.  In just three weeks, AMTA is making a presentation at the ISPA conference.  The topic is “Understanding and Aligning the Expectations of Spa Management and Massage Therapists.  It will include information for spa owners and managers to use when employing or contracting massage therapists, as well as methods to positively manage the impact massage therapists have on spa operations.

We will continue our networking with ISPA to improve the business conditions for those of you who choose to work in spas.

Another relationship area we are developing is around the importance of having one entry-level exam for the profession.  Over the last year, we have sent you emails and articles explaining the importance of this idea.  Just a year ago, the Federation of State Massage Therapy Boards (FSMTB) emerged.  Your AMTA leadership continues to support this kind of federation. 

But, to have portability, states need to accept similar requirements.  We don’t want massage therapists in a few years to have to take one exam in one state and have to take another if they move to another state.  We continue to encourage both FSMTB and the National Certification Board to find a workable solution to the exam issue.

AMTA representatives recently attended the annual meeting of the FSMTB and are meeting with them again in November, along with the NCB.  We will keep you abreast of continuing developments.

As we pursue our future, we keep in mind our 15-30 year goal, the Board established a few years ago.  It’s what we call AMTA’s “Big Goal” – “That AMTA members are the choice for massage as a routine part of society’s health and well-being.”  The idea is to influence consumers to choose an AMTA massage therapist for their massage. 

To support this, we are expanding our advertising.  We’ll be very visible on internet search engines, because that is becoming the most used means for people to search for a massage therapist.  We are currently running ads for AMTA’s Find a Massage Therapist national locator service on Google, Yahoo, DrWeil.com and WebMD.com.  We also are running full-page ads in Health, Body & Soul, Fitness, Shape and Working Mother magazines.  We are targeting people who already have experienced massage therapy and telling them they should look for an AMTA member.  We are telling them AMTA members should be their first choice, because being an AMTA member shows you care about being the best massage therapist.

We’ve recently launched the new findamassagetherapist.org website for consumers. Right now it’s AMTA’s Find a Massage Therapist national locator service.  But, in the next year it will become a robust consumer-oriented website to promote massage and lead them to AMTA members for their massage. 

This advertising campaign is designed to bring you more clients and expand the public’s recognition that AMTA members are dedicated professionals who provide the massage that best meets the client’s needs.  We are putting AMTA members in front of the consumer.  We are telling consumers to look for the AMTA logo. 

I encourage you to take full advantage of this advertising by using one of your member benefits – the right to use the AMTA logo.  With our emphasis on consumers asking for an AMTA member, it’s going to be a real benefit to display your AMTA logo.  Put your AMTA membership certificate on the wall, wear the AMTA logo, and put the logo in your own advertising.  We want spas, health clubs, clinics and hospitals to hire AMTA members, because consumers are asking for you.  That’s what preference is about.  You are the AMTA difference.

One of our best programs to promote massage therapy and AMTA members to the public is National Massage Therapy Awareness Week, October 22-28.  We created a poster to help you celebrate the week this year.  I’m sure you’ve noticed how it carries on the same image we use in our magazine ads.  Display the poster in your practice location and wherever you think people will see it. 

In closing, I want to thank you, the members, for all you do to make AMTA a member-driven organization.  And, to thank our elected national leaders whose vision, courage and hard work are fashioning an always evolving, always improving association, which openly seeks dialog with all stakeholders in the profession.  Remember, members elect national leaders annually, so please vote when your mail ballot arrives in early November. 

Thank you to the chapter volunteers who work so hard to make a positive member experience happen for you at a state and local level. They provide the high touch experience to you through their programming offers. 

Thank you to the staff at the National Office and those who are here in Atlanta, who implement the direction of the Board and seek ways to improve the delivery of benefits to you. 

And, a special thank you to Mary Beth Braun, AMTA’s National President, for her grace, intelligence, skills, foresight, intuition, dedication and willingness to serve as AMTA’s President for 2 years. 

Have a wonderful time in Atlanta.  I hope you leave the convention on Sunday feeling that you have quenched some of your thirst for knowledge.  May that thirst always be there.