President’s update

The saga has not come to an end, the current global pandemic is even getting worse in different parts of the planet. And at the same time we also witness life getting back to a new normal in many countries which have managed to partially contain its spread. But what is the ‘new normal’?
We embark on, possibly, the very first really globally connected decade with billions of people getting connected by technology, but on the flip side that may also lead to various digital emotional contagions threatening our mental health and social structures. It looks like this connected but desynchronised global society will continue to bring various new priorities to our attention. The feelings triggered by eco-anxiety, financial uncertainties, and digitalisation, together with various concepts like resilience, toxic positivity, always-on mentality, depression, burn out, wellness syndrome, happiness trap, exclusion, and power shift in organisations appear to be emerging topics for coaching and mentoring practices globally. And it’s obvious that although it creates substantial stress, and seen as an existential threat, at the same time the current disruptive transformation in many ways also offers a priceless opportunity for those who can adapt.
Within this context I’m so proud and happy to let you know that our annual conference which, with less than four weeks warning moved from a physical location in Paris to a virtual one, was a great success. Please allow me to extend my gratitude to all of our volunteers and participants who made this possible. It was a huge challenge and, thanks to excellent design and execution as well as the positivity of all the delegates, it turned out to be not only our largest ever conference, but also one of the best moments in our history. We have started the planning for the
2021 Global Annual Conference which will be a hybrid virtual/physical conference held in
Prague 12-14 May 2021, more details shortly at
www.EMCCconference.org
Now, it’s time to redesign our future to fit our new environment.
Global Annual Mentoring Conference: Under the current circumstances, it’s wise to design another virtual conference. We will miss Lisbon, with its warm people, welcoming climate, and wonderful food, but on the other hand having a virtual conference will allow us to reach out to a much larger global audience. We will start its design in the coming days, in case you have any
suggestions about a speaker please do reach out to
[email protected]
Current global issues: We are working on the design of our
communication policy on various major current issues. Rather than becoming a victim of emerging trendy topics, we believe it’s wiser to follow the agenda of major global institutions as a benchmark. We will shortly start posting our views on various policy items, and we will stick to ‘inclusion’ as our overarching principle in approaching these issues. We are also working on
relaunching our Friday morning ‘stay well, stay connected’ member Zoom online meeting series with a slightly modified format and structure. The first season of these meetings turned out to be such a positive experience with more than a thousand participants getting connected and creating an amazing inclusive community. We will aim to keep that platform with the same spirit. More details here
https://www.emccglobal.org/membership/members-download-area/covid-19-resource-area/covid-19-member-events/
EMCC Global Research : I’m happy to inform you that
Alison Mitchell who recently took up the role of E
MCC Global Head of Research Development is making solid progress with the aim to launch our new research action plan soon. We are also putting together a WorkGroup with enthusiastic volunteers under her leadership. I will greatly appreciate it, if you could kindly extend your support to her and her team. You can contact Alison on
[email protected]
5DC (Five Day Spring Challenge): A great abbreviation, isn’t it! You may have noticed that we have made an excellent progress in the area of
individual and supervision accreditation during the global lockdown period. Let me please congratulate our volunteers in this area for engaging and supporting everyone throughout this highly reflective, collaborative, and dynamic inquiry process. If you have not yet finalised your own professional designations, individual (EIA) or supervision (ESIA), then please do so. Now is the time. More details from
[email protected]
GPS Dialogue Series: allow me to ask for your attention to this series of online meetings successfully building momentum in reinforcing our brand with
EMCC Global Accredited Providers , who are active in
140+ countries across the world. The GPS Dialogue Series continues the key topic areas from the ’round tables’ at the EMCC GPS – Co-creating the Future for our Professional Practice, held in November 2019 at Heathrow. To contribute and follow these series you can please contact Nicola Brown:
[email protected]
Online events: with this years addition of the GPS Dialogue series and the COVID-19 series, we now have
six different online events series
https://www.emccglobal.org/about_emcc/online-events/ . If you are
interested in contributing on a topic please contact
[email protected] with a short outline of the area you are interested in speaking on, some information about your interest and experience in that area, and which series you think your offer would best fit. In the meantime keep an eye on our monthly calendar of events so that you don’t miss out on any of our events
https://www.emccglobal.org/calendar/
EMCC Slovenia: I’m also happy to let you know that after the affiliation of EMCC Portugal earlier this year, we have recently had the joy of welcoming EMCC Slovenia in our growing family.
Country Zoom Meetings: I have personally already joined meetings organised by our affiliated countries in APR, Czech Republic, Cyprus, Finland, France, Hungary, Ireland, Romania, Slovenia, and Turkey. And thanks to technology, all done with only a marginal carbon footprint. It has been a real pleasure to meet with our members. At each meeting I learn a lot, and hopefully reflect our values, vision, and enthusiasm to members. The remote access digital solutions enable us to do more. We plan many more similar activities with various other speakers, panel discussions, recorded messages etc. Such efforts will not only hopefully enhance our growth, but also serve our purpose to promote the best practice in mentoring, coaching, and supervision to a larger community. There are 8 billion people out there who need our support in that regard.
And,
please do take care. The pandemic is not over. Actually it is gaining more and more speed in various parts of the world. The saga has not ended.
I wish a healthy and enjoyable summer to all of our community. And as always, in case you need anything, please do not hesitate to reach out to us and to each other. You can use the EMCC member directory to find each other’s contact details
https://www.emccglobal.org/directory/
It’s nice to know that we are not alone.