Dear Members, thank you for your support in electing me as President of EMCC UK. I am grateful to Rita Symons, our previous President, for her sponsorship, guidance, and the legacy she leaves: EMCC UK is thriving. This is also thanks to the tremendous contribution of our members in sustaining this entirely voluntary organisation.
I am also grateful to our board of volunteers including Peter Duffell, Paul Crick, Hannah Butler and Mark Ellery, all of whom are dedicated to our profession, evidenced by their commitment to delivering our strategic agenda. Also, our governors and Claire Davey, Chair of Governors, for their advice and counsel. We are entirely reliant on our volunteers, as well as our small part-time operations team, who work wonders with the resources they have available – thank you to Michelle Kenyon and her team.
But there is much more to do, and I have three requests for you, our membership.
Diversity in our Leadership – Join us! We want you to join us in leading the organisation through its next stage of development. You’ll find details about how you can get involved here. Our vision is to create a vibrant community that is connected and well-resourced, offering you a wealth of opportunities including networking, learning and professional development opportunities, promoting best practice, as well as assisting you to create a robust business or practice.
To do this effectively, we need a diverse board and governing body. I strongly encourage you to talk to Claire or me about these opportunities, even if you think you are not ready yet. I am open to job-sharing if you want to team up with a fellow practitioner. We want to get our succession plan in place and to start to create our future leaders. I commit to mentoring three potential board members over the next three years. The world is changing, and we need to change with it!
A Thriving Digital Community – Creating Strength Through Connection. We have a vibrant membership, and I would like to showcase you to each other. We have huge untapped potential as a professional body. There is so much knowledge, expertise, and experience amongst you all, not just in coaching, mentoring and supervision but also in business, public service, and academia. If you need help, support, advice, or guidance, I know that our members can offer you what you need, but right now it’s not so easy to connect beyond our groups or networks.
Our mentoring scheme makes a fantastic contribution, do investigate it if you haven’t already, but we also want to deepen informal relationships too. So, we plan to upgrade our technology platform to allow this to happen and to complement our face-to-face activities. This technology goes beyond a website and includes a membership platform designed to facilitate a thriving community that truly displays the wonderful diversity of our membership. Do get in touch if you’d like to support us moving forward. This work is under the remit of the new Membership Engagement Director, a role we are recruiting for, and we are also looking for volunteers for a steering committee – we want to represent interests across the whole of our membership.
Reputational Management – Proudly EMCC UK. There is a threat to the coaching industry from practitioners who are not accredited or properly trained; anyone can call themselves a coach, mentor or supervisor. Therefore, there is a job to be done in promoting what we do, the standards we maintain and our qualified/accredited members to those who buy or use our services. Firstly, I encourage you to get accredited – I can strongly recommend the five-day challenge run by EMCC Global, having done it myself in 2020. It makes the process streamlined and accessible.
My plan as President is to spend more time externally with other professional bodies, purchasing authorities and business organisations to continue to get our message across and to bring their voice into our internal dialogues. I ask for your help in connecting us to those organisations or to actively seek out ways for us to promote our work as a professional body, be it in your organisation, those of your clients or other membership organisations. I have already made a start on this and will be working closely with EMCC Global to address this challenge internationally.
If you have any questions, comments or would like to chat about the above requests you can contact me at [email protected], and let’s get connecting! Thanks again for being part of our vibrant organisation.