PHANA COUNCIL: Minutes of the
7- 9 pm, November 23, 2004 Teleconference 

Present: Sahra Aschenbach (Chair) ; Roddy Duchesne (Recorder); Jan Rigsby; Dottie Titus.

Absent:       Cynthia Schwarzberg.

1.   Principal Decisions and Future Actions

A.   Subject to Cynthia’s availability we propose to have our next teleconference on January 17, 2005, 7-9 pm EST – item 3 below.

B.      Dottie to follow up concerning professional liability – item 4B.

C.      Council members to send Sahra suggestions for rejuvenating the Pathwork and making it more relevant – item 6.

D.      Jan to circulate dates she can attend a meeting in North America in summer 2005 – item 6 [Done].

E.      Roddy to draft and circulate a package for mailing to ex-members and qualified people who never joined – item 7A.

F.      Council membership.  Roddy to invite Ann Norfolk to join PHANA Council.  Dottie to inquire and report back concerning whether Brenda Cooper is a possible Council member – item 7B.

G.     We will extend the current PTH introductory period to August 31, 2005 – item 7D.

2.   Round of Sharing

We did a brief check-in with each member present.   Roddy noted that he expects to move on January 21 to another address in Toronto, not far from where he is currently located.  He will have less time for PHANA business during January and early February.

3.   Date/Time for our Next Teleconference

Subject to Cynthia’s availability, we propose to have our next teleconference on January 17, 2005, 7-9 pm EST.  Roddy will make the necessary teleconference call arrangements.

4.   Remaining Action Items from September 20 Minutes

A.      September 20 Minutes

While draft 2 of the minutes had been approved as final and mounted on the website, Roddy had not circulated the same text marked as “final.”   He undertook to do this. [Done]

B.      Professional Liability Insurance

Dottie undertook to follow up concerning possibilities for PHANA members to qualify for professional liability insurance with Healthcare Providers Service Organization (HPSO), website www.hpso.com – and to circulate her findings to Council.

5.   Report on October 20 Mailing to PHANA Members

Roddy reported that he had sent the Council’s “PHANA – Phase 2” document with a covering letter to 44 members.  He received and circulated to Council one question/comment on the Phase 2 report.  No members responded to the covering letter’s invitation for members to come forward to join PHANA Council.

After allowing a few more weeks for member responses we can take it that PHANA members accept all the proposals in the “PHANA – Phase 2” document.  Our principal next step will be to incorporate the revised mission, etc. into a new invitation package.  We will then send this package to people who are eligible to join, but who have either never joined – or whose membership has lapsed.  The importance of this invitation process is underlined by the fact that PHANA membership is currently 35 [compared with 50 on April 30, 2004 and 60 on April 30, 2003].

6.   NAPA Conference

Roddy and Sahra reported that NAPA is proposing to organize a North American Pathwork conference sometime in summer 2005.  NAPA’s intention in doing this is to build more unity and connection within the North American Pathwork, and also to seek ways to rejuvenate the Pathwork, including considering new models and ways for growing and teaching Pathwork.  Recent significant declines in the student numbers at both MAP and Pathwork of California provide an added incentive to hold a conference with this orientation.  For example, MAP’s PTP student numbers of 90 in 2003-4 dropped to 55 in 2004-5, a drop of 32%.  MAP’s rental income also dropped.

This led to a quite wide-ranging discussion that was very much in favor of such a conference taking place, of finding ways to re-vitalize the Pathwork in North America, and of considering new study/training models.  Gail Straub’s “Grace: A Spiritual Growth Training Program” www.empowermenttraining.com was mention in this connection.  It was also noted in discussion that 50/50 Helper training is much shorter than Pathwork Helper training. Judith Garten recently graduated a group of 50/50 Helpers in Woodstock.  The group ran for 2 years.

Sahra invited each member of the Council to write her a page (circulating this to other Council members) saying “what you think would help the Pathwork to become more alive and relevant in the 21^st century.”  If you know of anyone who would be willing to write suggestions, please invite them to also send their suggestions to Sahra.

We noted that it will probably make sense to schedule a PHANA Council in-person meeting either before or after the conference, at or near the conference location.  To assist with scheduling, Jan will circulate dates that she could attend a meeting in summer 2005.

7.   Priorities

We discussed the following priorities:

A.      Mailing to PHANA ex-members & qualified people who never joined.

Roddy will draft a package and circulate it to Council.  We envisage sending out the finalized package in the first half of January.

B.      PHANA Council membership.

Roddy will contact Ann Norfolk and invite her to join Council.  Dottie mentioned Brenda Cooper (Oregon) as a possible Council member.  She will inquire and report back.

C.      Professional liability insurance – Action already noted in 4B above.

D.      PTH

Dottie reported that there are currently 35 PTH users and 141 documents, of which 119 are in English.

In discussion, we decided that PTH needs more time to build before it will be appropriate to introduce user fees.  We therefore propose to extend the current introductory period to August 31, 2005.

Dottie proposes to contact PTH users to obtain feedback on the service.  She will provide Roddy with a list of PTH users who appear to be eligible to be PHANA members, so that Roddy can include these people in the mailing mentioned in item 7A above.

In addition, we discussed Associate Membership in PHANA, including the possibility of admitting North American lecture study group leaders to Associate Membership.  The consensus was that we need to think Associate Membership criteria through carefully before coming to a decision.  At a policy level, we need to consider if it is in PHANA’s interest as a professional association to admit as members people who are not Helpers, Apprentices, of Trainees.  Also, PHANA is for individuals, and the question was raised as to whether recognition would really be for the group leader or for the (informal) group.  The distinction between lecture study groups and lecture discussion groups also needs to be considered and taken into account.