16 January 2024
Ivan Beaumont, the new President of EMCC UK, writes:
Hello, everyone. I am honoured and delighted to have been elected as the new President of EMCC UK. Thank you. These are exciting times for our profession and for us.
Firstly, a massive thank you to Rachael for her leadership of EMCC UK, as it has become the inclusive, progressive, supportive and professional membership community that we enjoy and benefit from today. It has been wonderful to work with Rachael and I look forward to that continuing in the future.
Secondly, I am pleased to be able to share with you our Strategy for 2024-27, a document created by the Board with the support of our Governors. It is a short read, but really gives us all a great feel for who we are and where we may be heading – and how – as a vibrant community. From this, each of our directorates will create plans that align with the strategy, which we look forward to sharing with you in future communications. This is a ‘live document’, so please get in touch with me if you have any comments or suggestions. I would love to hear from you.
As I am writing this, I am less than two weeks into the President role, and what an enjoyable, if busy, time it has been. I have already learned a lot and met so many people.
It was a pleasure to have an in-person coffee and chat with Wendy Strohm, our new Chair of Governors, and discuss how the Board and our Governors will work collaboratively. I was delighted to spend 90 minutes in St Pancras in conversation with Katherine Tulpa, CEO of the Association for Coaching, and start to explore how we may collaborate. I also experienced a fantastic induction to EMCC Global with Stephen Murphy, the Vice-President for Thought Leadership & Development. These were but a few of the people I have talked with, and I thank everyone who met with me.
I mentioned earlier just what a vibrant community we have. There are so many opportunities for us all to connect with each other, learn and contribute. I thought I would end this brief hello by mentioning just a few events that I have either been to this month, or which I will be attending soon.
Last week I attended the EMCC Global Tough Talk event on Climate Change and Sustainability, with 100 other people. It was great to witness such passion for this topic, a topic I would say I was at a stage of curiosity when I attended. This will be one of the strategic issues that we are likely to focus on with our colleagues at ICF (I am meeting Lise Bruynooghe today), with AC and others, I am sure, alongside, for example, technology/AI, research and diversity.
An event I am greatly looking forward to is the inaugural Supervision special interest group on 30 January with guest speakers Robin and Joan Shohet, which is sure to be a delight. I recommend their book In Love with Supervision.
Of course, I can’t end without mentioning the EMCC UK Festival on 23 April, and I look forward to seeing many of you there. There is so much going on and I encourage you to check out our events page and schedule some of them into your calendars.
Finally, a personal thank you to our Board and our Governing Body for their ongoing support; all volunteer members for your significant and inspirational contributions; our small and fantastic Operations Team for everything they do, and lastly, but most importantly, all of you for your membership.
Take care, and I hope to see many of you soon.
Ivan