35 Years, 35 New Cities; 10+ Years a Delegate

Well the title says it all.  I am Jan DiMasi.  Many of you know me, however since the statistics say the average massage therapist only lasts 6 years, maybe you’re new.    I have been asked to tell my story, so here it goes….

DISCLAIMER: I am reporting this from memory. This is not intended to be 100% factual.

I was a student in the first class of Chicago School of Massage Therapy (Bob King  and Jim Hackett were the primary teachers) and joined the IL AMTA  as a student in June 1982.  At the time there were 147 members in IL and the list was retyped twice a year. A couple of years later I  offered to put the list  on a computer program, make labels to send out newsletters, and provided reports on our state membership. When the list got to 1000 entries, IL AMTA was able to open an office in Lisle and the list was put on a larger computer.  I served IL AMTA for 8 years as a membership chair and as vice president.

My first AMTA convention was in Nashville, TN 1982.  The convention was very small.  I met a lot of people who would later become presidents of AMTA.  From the beginning I was thrilled to learn there was an association that I could join.  I liked being part of the collective and I was hooked on conventions.  I always liked to travel so having a convention to attend was my kind of fun.  Taking classes was simply a bonus!

In the beginning there were conventions and conferences.  For 13 years I traveled to two cities a year.  I have been to 27 AMTA conventions and 13 AMTA conferences. This really helped me get to all 50 states by the time I turned 55.  Around 1997 the conferences ended.  This was probably since there was so much education being offered throughout the country at the time.

At my third AMTA national meeting  in Snowbird, Utah in 1983, I remember being in a room of 300 people who were voting on national board members as well as doing business with Robert’s rules.  It was difficult to understand what was going on.  I believe at that meeting it was decided to add a continuing education requirement to the membership renewal.  I remember making an amendment to the motion to make the requirement for every 2 years.  My efforts failed, however I had to smile when Illinois got licensure and the requirement was 24 hours of continuing education every 2 years.  

As the membership grew, this “everyone can participate” mentality became too complicated.   Tallying paper ballots could go for hours before the tellers committee could announce the result.

When the AMTA National Board started to use Strategic planning, the call for a House of Delegates became a much needed idea.  The decision was made at the Chicago convention 50th anniversary of AMTA in 1993.  The first House of Delegates was held in Albuquerque, NM in 1994. Over time, the process and protocol for running the HOD was fine tuned.  Some of those processes were electing a committee for HOD, teaching Robert’s rules and training volunteers how to be delegates.  I believe the original idea was for the House of Delegates to make decisions that would affect the whole association.  Very quickly our task was relegated to making recommendations that would go to the national board for consideration.  Most of the time, the National Board would agree and make the change we called for.  State chapters wanted more accurate representation so the number of delegates grew to give states with larger membership more delegates.  After a while technology came along and we received handheld devices on which to vote.  Somewhere along the way, position statements were included in the process of the House of Delegates.  Many times the HOD would have a really good resolution or position statement that would not pass because of wording or small interpretations that changed the essence of the document making it unacceptable to the HOD.

Ten years ago I decided I would only attend conventions every 5 years to collect my anniversary pin.  The conventions were in cities that I had been to before, and the education was focused primarily on new massage therapists.

This year I knew I was going to Pasadena, CA for the convention so I put my resume in for alternate delegate to help out if I was needed.  Turns out, I was needed.   It was lucky happenstance that I was attending the last meeting of the HOD. This made me the only person who was a delegate at the first HOD and the last.  It has been over 10 years since I have been a delegate.  I was very surprised when the position statement passed.  I was told that passage of this statement meant it would become the position of the National AMTA. Then I realized that this would be the last time it would happen this way.  I also realized, except for one other person who was a delegate early like me, just how huge this action was.   The same arguments came up that in the past would cause the delegation to nitpick and fail the document.  This year the HOD passed the document anyway!  The position statement we passed is:

Massage Therapy can provide significant benefits as a component of integrative health care.

Like I said – it is huge that this is now the position of the AMTA.

Again HOD has evolved and next year it will become the Assembly of Delegates with a new directive.  Next year the AOD will discuss and debate the position statement and recommendation, then all the information will be forwarded to the national board for their consideration.  The difference is that notes of all of the debate will be included and the numbers of delegates will be reduced back to where we started.  This will happen over time as delegate office terms run out.

Submitted with love,

Jan DiMasi