Category: Politics of Massage

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My Picks for the NCBTMB Election

November 1 is the deadline for voting for new Board of Director members at the NCBTMB.

This was not an easy task for me this time; almost everyone of these people is on my Facebook, and several of them are people that I actually know in person. It was a very hard call for me to choose one over another, and I don’t intend any bad reflection on the ones I didn’t choose. I always admire it when anyone is willing to step up to the plate and volunteer for what is basically a thankless job. Service on any board is very time-consuming, requires conference calls that drag on for hours, travel, causes people to miss work, home, time with family, and cuts into whatever other obligations they may have.

My first pick is Bruce Baltz. I have met Bruce on several occasions, and got to talk with him at length a few weeks ago at AMTA in MN. Bruce is an educator and has been serving on the CE Committee at the NCBTMB since 2007. He is on board with my desire for seeing the organization offer advanced specialty certifications, and I know he will work towards that. He also has managerial experience, which I consider a plus for this position. I admire him; I think he has a lot to contribute, and he gets my vote.

I am supporting Steve Earles from GA. I have personally met Steve; he attended a class I taught in GA a couple of years ago and we have stayed in touch. Steve has been serving on the GA Board; his term is already over, and he is continuing to serve because they have not appointed anyone else to take his place. Like many of us, Steve came to massage later in life, after a successful first career (working for the airlines.)

I appreciate the fact that Steve acknowledges the past difficulties of the NCBTMB in his candidate statement–and that they printed it, because there was a period of time when that wouldn’t have happened. He is ready, willing, and able to help bring in new energy. He has been active on the AMTA Government Relations Committee since 2007. He gets my vote.

I am also supporting Pualani Gillespie. For my long-time blog readers, you know that wasn’t always the case. I did in fact support Pua back in a previous election, and later rescinded that support. However, I spent a lot of time talking with Pua at the AFMTE meeting in Utah earlier this year, and she and I came to an agreement and a shared philosophy on a number of points. She is a founding member of AFMTE, serves their Ethics and Standards Committee; has volunteered for the NCBTMB for several years and is currently the Chair of their Ethics and Standards Committee, and is also currently the President of the Hawaii chapter of AMTA. I think Pua possesses humility, which is an attractive quality for a person serving on a Board to have. I think Pua will be balanced, and a peace-maker, and I think that is a necessary trait at this point in the evolution of the NCBTMB and their relationships with other organizations that Pua is involved with.

I am supporting Judy Silcock from Idaho. Judy has been serving as a volunteer with the NCBTMB since 1999. That’s important, because she has seen the best of the best and the worst of the worst during her tenure on various committees there. She knows the history and has experience that I feel is important. I have never met Judy, but I called her yesterday and spoke with her to find out more about her experience and opinions. Idaho is an unregulated state. Many therapists there have National Certification because it sets them apart as professionals. Judy is also very interested in seeing regulation come to Idaho, is working towards that effort, and I feel she will play a balanced roll between the regulatory faction and the certification faction. Judy would like to see Idaho accept both the MBLEx and the NCB exams, a philosophy that I personally support. Judy got started on her career in massage therapy back in 1969, so I think she’s seen it all by this point in time and has a lot to bring to the table. She gets my vote.

Everyone who is Nationally Certified has the right to vote, and I hope that right is exercised by all. It’s just like any other election: if you don’t vote, don’t complain! Voting is available online on the NCBTMB website.

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IMA Insurance: Up in Smoke, Therapists Burned

The saga of the now-defunct IMA (International Massage Association) continues. Back in July, Will Green, owner/founder of IMA, basically admitted to sabotaging his own company by failing to turn over $600,000 in insurance premiums paid by massage therapists to the insurance company.

Markel, a respectable insurance company who had been underwriting IMA’s policies since Feb 1, 2008, discontinued writing policies for IMA on April 6, 2010 due to Green’s non-payment of premiums. However, contrary to some propaganda put out by AMC (American Massage Council), Markel is continuing to honor the policies they underwrote through the expiration date on the policy if it was purchased between Feb 1, 2008 and April 6, 2010, in spite of not receiving the premium payments from IMA.

Les Sweeney, President of ABMP, in a letter to former and renewing IMA members, personally spoke with a senior executive at Markel and confirmed Markel’s commitment not to leave therapists in the lurch. According to Sweeney’s letter, AMC’s announcement amounts to nothing more than a scare tactic, and one that is certainly not needed by the therapists who are already confused and scared that their insurance went up in smoke. ABMP, incidentally, has had the same insurance underwriter for more than ten years and does not need to resort to such tactics in order to attract new members.

Incredibly, Mr. Green is now trying to sell insurance through NAMT (National Association of Massage Therapists).

Let me put this in perspective. Let’s say that I, Laura Allen, take your hard-earned money and promise you an insurance policy. Then I take that money and blow it instead of paying the premiums to the underwriter like I am supposed to do. Should I then expect you to say, “that’s okay, Laura, and here’s some more of my hard-earned money and you can just sell me a new policy. I’m sure you really didn’t mean to cheat me out of that first money I paid you.” Duh.

According to a letter dated 09/10/2010 from the NAMT staff and Will Green, over 3,000 MTs have signed on with NAMT in the past 18 months. Since Green didn’t admit to his improprieties until July 2010, I truly wonder if any of that $600,000 he admitted to frittering away went in any way to pay bills at NAMT. I am purely speculating, but $600,000 is a lot of money. I personally think the therapists who had insurance with IMA at the time of Green’s announcement deserve a line-by-line accounting of exactly where that money went.

It is also totally scary to me that the website for IMA is still up, no mention of the insurance fiasco is on it, and in fact there is a video starring Will Green stating that he manages over 90 associations. He also talks about having spent $3 million on his organic farm. Maybe you can call him up and demand a bushel of turnips in exchange for the money you paid to IMA.

It has also been charged that Green is being investigated by the FBI, a charge that he categorically denies. There is no telling how much of the swirling rumors are true, but one thing is for certain: I would not give my money a second time to someone who has already done me wrong. Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me.

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Rick Rosen: Time for the Next Chapter

Rick Rosen is Executive Director of the Alliance for Massage Therapy Education (AFMTE), and has been one of the driving forces in the massage profession for almost three decades. He is also co-owner of Body Therapy Institute (BTI) in Siler City, North Carolina, along with his wife Carey Smith. The couple announced this week that they are retiring from the massage school business. They are putting BTI up for sale and will be moving to the Big Island of Hawaii within the next 12-18 months.

Rosen has covered a lot of territory during his service to our profession. Inducted this year into the Massage Therapy Hall of Fame, he was the founding Chairman of the North Carolina Board of Massage & Bodywork Therapy, and was one of the first Presidents of the North Carolina Chapter of AMTA. He was also a co-founder and the first Executive Director of the Federation of State Massage Therapy Boards. Rosen’s commitment as Executive Director of AFMTE runs through the end of this year, and he has offered to extend that if needed. “I may be completing this phase of my career as a massage school director, but I’m open to further exploration of how I may continue to be of service to the massage therapy profession at large” said Rosen, in a letter announcing his transition plans.

Carey Smith was the 2009 recipient of AMTA’s Jerome Perlinski Teacher of the Year Award, and has pioneered teacher training for massage educators. She and her husband have co-directed the Body Therapy Institute for 17 years. Founded by Rosen in 1983, BTI was the first school of massage therapy in the Carolinas, and has become one of the most respected massage schools in the nation. Located on a beautiful 156-acre property known as South Wind Farm. BTI is one of only two COMTA-approved schools in NC. During the past year, 100% of the school’s graduates passed the NCE and MBLEx on their first try. The school has long been known as a center of excellence, thanks to these two leaders and their dedicated faculty.

While expressing that they will miss the farm, the school and their staff, the couple is looking forward to the next chapter of their lives so they can have more time for creative endeavors. Rosen noted, “We invite prospective students all the time to come to massage school to pursue their goals and dreams. Now it’s time for our next great adventure.”

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Executive Director of AMTA Resigns

Elizabeth Lucas, who has been the Executive Director of the American Massage Therapy Association for more than a decade, has resigned.

The statement that was released by the Board of Directors was short and offered no details behind the departure. It read:

The AMTA Board of Directors has accepted the resignation of our long-time Executive Director, Elizabeth M. Lucas.  During her more than 10 years as Executive Director, and in her years before that as Director of Communications and Marketing, Liz provided AMTA, the National Office and staff with outstanding leadership, while carrying out the direction of the national board.  The board and staff thank Liz for all of her contributions and wish her all the best as she pursues other career opportunities.

The board will begin its search for a new Executive Director for both AMTA and the Massage Therapy Foundation. In the meantime, Shelly Johnson, who has been AMTA Deputy Director for more than 8 years, will function as Interim Executive Director.  All AMTA day-to-day activities will continue as scheduled.

AMTA Board of Directors

The timing of this is interesting; the National Convention is only three weeks away. I had in fact personally e-mailed Ms. Lucas this past week to express my personal opinion about the NCBTMB being prohibited from exhibiting at the convention, something I’ve known about for some time. I haven’t previously thrown it out on the blog out of my respect for AMTA and not wanting to look like I was accusing them of behaving badly, but it’s gotten to the point where it isn’t any kind of secret. It’s now common knowledge. When it hits Facebook you know the word is out.

I shared with Ms. Lucas my opinion that keeping out the NCBTMB was a retaliatory decision based on last year’s ill-conceived plan to morph into a membership organization and compete in the insurance market. The NCBTMB leadership realized that it was bad move for them, and rescinded it, and at Lucas’ own request, even put it in writing.

I pointed out to her, as I have stated in several previous blogs, that we are supposed to be a profession that’s all about healing, that we needed reconciliation, and that I depended on our organizational leaders to be the model for that. Her response to me, which I received on August 24, was to thank me for sharing my opinion and to say “I too, am a big advocate of playing well in the sandbox, modeling the way and walking the talk. I think we have those philosophies in common.”

In fact, in January of this year, Lucas responded to a written interview I conducted, and one of my questions was what did she view as the ideal relationship between all the professional organizations. Her reply was

“Despite the reality that the profession has chosen to have multiple organizations to represent it, we all need to cooperate to support the profession.  Ultimately, we all serve the same stakeholders.  So, I believe, it is to the profession’s advantage to have these organizations work together.”

I agree wholeheartedly, and I hope the leadership of every organization takes note of that. This profession is the family of hands. Dissension and disharmony need to take a back seat to personality conflicts and playing tit for tat. There is enough room here for everybody.

Ms. Lucas had 14 years total of service with AMTA, as they have acknowledged. She also had an extremely well-paying job and benefits, in the $300,000+ neighborhood, the types of which don’t grow on trees. Normally, when someone leaves a position like that–particularly in a recession economy like the one we’re in–they either have a better offer on the horizon or they’re being forced out. No word on which case applies here.

Good luck to Ms. Lucas, wherever she winds up, and good luck to Shelley Johnson, Deputy Director, who is stepping up to the plate as interim director.

In the final analysis, AMTA is not about the Executive Director, or the Board of Directors. AMTA is the 56,000 or so of us who are members and the hundreds of massage therapists who volunteer their time to the organization.

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It Takes a Village

This past weekend, I witnessed Mike Hinkle, Cindy Michaels, and just a few volunteers pull off the World Massage Festival, undoubtedly the best massage event I’ve ever attended.  Next year is going to be even bigger and better, and before this weekend was over, there were more volunteers signing up for next year. That’s a good thing.

While it’s true that the people at the top of AMTA get paid, that organization would never survive without the volunteers who serve on the boards of state chapters, or serve as delegates, unit coordinators, and/or committee members.

State boards are usually composed of volunteers. While it’s true that in my state our travel expenses to and from meetings is reimbursed and we get a per diem of 50. for a half-day/100 for a whole day, no one is getting rich off of that. It takes me over four hours to travel to a meeting and I have to pay someone to run my office while I’m gone. We’re limited to paying 62. a night for a hotel.  I’m not exactly living it up at the Ritz when I’m on board business. There is no per diem for the countless hours between meetings that we’re reading minutes and agendas, doing research on issues we are considering, or drafting committee reports.

The board members of the Federation of State Massage Therapy Boards, as well as the delegates, and the numerous volunteers on all the committees of the NCBTMB, and the board members for the Alliance for Massage Therapy Education also get their travel covered, but until you’ve served an organization like this, you don’t realize how time-consuming it can be.

Every day, somewhere, massage therapists are out giving their time to Hospice, veterans, cancer patients, premature babies, benefits for cancer and other worthy causes.

All these people have a life, a job, families and pets to take care of, school and church and civic and social obligations, but somehow they make it work.

It really does take a village.

Peace and Prosperity,

Laura Allen

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Legislation: A Hard Row to Hoe

The majority of states have now passed massage therapy legislation; there are only five remaining states without any regulation: Alaska, Kansas, Montana, Oklahoma, and Wyoming. Idaho and Minnesota both have Freedom of Access laws in effect. 35 states, plus the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico have joined the Federation of State Massage Therapy Boards. I hope the rest of the regulated states will follow suit and join this great collaboration.

This past weekend, I was in the beautiful state of Kansas teaching a class for the AMTA Chapter there. I listened to Chapter President Marla Heiger give an update on their legislative process, which actually started ten years ago. It will be revisited in July.  Getting massage regulation in place is a hard row to hoe, as anyone who has ever been in on the process can attest.

Back in the day when massage legislation first came to North Carolina, I was employed by a massage school; the owner of that was on the first board here. In my capacity as her administrator, I sent around to neighboring states that already had legislation, and helped her summarize their rules. She was on the rules committee at the time, and had a hand in drafting the initial rules. It’s never a simple process.

One of the main hurdles, for a lot of states, has been in educating legislators, and convincing them that regulation is needed and that it benefits the public as well as the profession.

I’m not just a massage therapist, I’m a marketer. One of the main rules of marketing is that people want to know how something will benefit them. And one of the main rules of politics, as we all know, is that legislators often have to be forced into paying attention to important issues.  Involvement on the part of massage therapists is crucial.  Last week in Kansas, for example, the chapter president handed out blank petitions and encouraged the therapists who were present to ask all their clients to sign them…they need a certain number of petitioners before the legislature will even put the issue back on their agenda.

Getting legislation in place depends largely on the efforts of AMTA. ABMP also has a government relations representative. The FSMTB is here to help member boards in any way they can. In the final analysis, massage therapists have to care. They have to want the credibility that goes along with licensure. They have to want to put a stop to unethical practices associated with massage. One of the therapists in my class this weekend said that in spite of the fact that there is no licensure there, when their new phone book came out recently, there were six listings of people claiming to be “licensed massage therapists. ” That’s bad, because in the eyes of the public who may be looking for a therapist and doesn’t know anything about the law,  it makes the dishonest advertisers look superior to the therapists who are listings themselves honestly without that designation. All the more reason to get some rules in place.

I wish Kansas well with their legislative efforts, and I hope that the few other holdout states will follow suit. It’s important to our evolution as a profession.

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Report from AFMTE Meeting

I traveled to Park City, Utah last week to attend the first annual meeting of the Alliance for Massage Therapy Education, an organization I am happy to say I am a founding member of. In spite of the fact that I suffered through a heinous case of altitude sickness, I’m very glad I was able to attend, and I must report that the meeting was a rousing success.

Rick Rosen, the Executive Director, and his lovely wife Carey Smith, along with the leadership team, pulled off a wonderful gathering of some of the brightest and best in the bodywork business. The setting at the Grand Summit in the Canyons Resort was beautiful, the food and lodging was great, the education was a bonus, but I’d have to say the greatest thing was the fellowship and sharing of ideas that occurred over the course of the conference.

During the course of the long weekend, the membership came together for the purpose of brainstorming a vision for the future of the Alliance. This organization was founded last year for the purpose of being an advocate for the education sector of our profession. Membership is open to schools, teachers, and continuing education providers; associate membership is open to industry supporters. During the first day, we heard short speeches from the leadership of ABMP, the NCBTMB, COMTA, the FSMTB, and Coulter Non-Profit Management (hired to oversee the management) who all praised the formation and purpose of the Alliance. A number of sponsors and vendors were on hand as well, including representatives from Massage Today, Oakworks, Resource ETC, Bon Vital, and several others.

We enjoyed a gondola ride up the mountain, which incidentally still had snow lingering on the ground, to a great buffet dinner. I was thrilled to see lots of old friends and make some new ones. I was delighted to meet Mark Beck, who authored the massage theory and practice book I learned from as a massage student. He was elected to the Board of Directors, as was Ralph Stephens and Cherie Sohnen-Moe. Other members of the leadership team, including Su Bibik, Pete Whitridge, Iris Burman and Stan Dawson are remaining on in Board positions, which in fact caused the only hairy moment of the entire meeting. A couple of attendees questioned the fact that the leadership team put forth a slate of candidates that included themselves; however, the general consensus was that since this was a new start-up organization that the action was not without precedent and that such action was taken for continuity’s sake. A nominating committee was also elected to recruit suitable candidates for the next term. The seven board members will serve staggered terms of one and two years, for this first cycle, so there won’t be an experience deficit on the Board.

I attended a great class on ethics in education by Cherie Sohnen-Moe. Other offerings included a class on the Massage Therapy Body of Knowledge and several classes geared to school owners on the topics of recruitment and financial aid.

The last day of the conference included a raffle drawing with wonderful prizes, and a beautiful closing ceremony. All in all, it was a very harmonious gathering of like-minded souls who want to see massage therapy education thrive and reach its full potential. The AFMTE intends to facilitate that, and as with any people-driven organization, the success or failure of an organization depends on those people. I don’t think there’s any question that the Alliance is set to become the driving force behind the advocacy of excellence in education. Congratulations to Rick Rosen and the rest who made this first gathering a great one.

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Interesting Changes in COMTA By-laws

I reported in my May 5 blog that COMTA volunteer of more than ten years, John Goss, had been removed from his position, during a meeting he was unable to attend. That led to my reporting a personal experience I had with the organization; I heard through the grapevine that the officers were upset that I had given them negative publicity. I don’t owe them an apology, and there will not be one forthcoming.

I haven’t felt any need to revisit the issue, but an interested party sent me a copy of changes that COMTA had made to their by-laws, effective April 16. I received them while I was on vacation, am just now getting caught up on my correspondence, and I must say, it looks as if they might have been changed in anticipation of getting rid of Mr. Goss.

Here we have an interesting change:

Section 3.12:  A Commissioner who is present at a meeting of the Board at which action on any matter is taken shall be conclusively presumed to have assented to the action taken unless his or her dissent shall be entered in the minutes of the meeting. Such right to dissent shall not apply to a Commissioner who voted in favor of such action.

According to a COMTA insider, who prefers to remain anonymous, the minutes never record votes by commissioner per se unless that commissioner asks that his/her vote be specifically recorded, and since few know this, this section seems intended to silence dissent.  Basically, it says that if you were there, you assented—regardless of how you voted unless it is specifically recorded in the minutes.  The ByLaws do not require votes to be recorded on a roll-call basis.  Seems this is needed before Section 3.12 can be enforced.

Then we have these:

Section 3.14: …In addition, a Commissioner may be removed without cause by an affirmative vote of two-thirds of the Commissioners then in office.

and to top it all off:

Section 4.2:  … Any officer may be removed by the Board of Commissioners at any time with or without cause, whenever the Board of Commissioners believes the best interest of the Corporation would be served thereby.

I stated in my earlier blog that Goss was known for asking hard questions and holding members accountable.  When I contacted COMTA leadership for a quote, before printing my blog about Goss, I got the answer that he was thanked for his past service and wished well in the future.  Later on, COMTA Chair Melissa Wade e-mailed me that due to confidentiality, they could not tell me why Goss was removed, but assured me that if I was elected to the Commission I would have access to the file. Obviously, that’s not happening.

It looks to me like the amended section 4.2 will allow the Commissioners to remove anybody that disagrees with them, or makes them mad in anyway. When you put yourself in the position of being able to remove someone without just cause, what does that translate to? We can remove you if we don’t like your tie? Your attitude? Your questioning our authority?

Board documents, such as practice acts, rules, by-laws and guidelines of any board are living documents, subject to change as time and experience show a need. Hopefully they are always changed with an eye to improving the public protection, service to stakeholders, or whatever the particular entity is charged with doing. I’m not sure that’s the case here.

I’d like to remind the folks at COMTA that big egos at the top, a lack of transparency, poor service to stakeholders,  and changing by-laws to suit whomever is in charge at the time, are the very things that came within a hair’s breadth of bringing down the NCBTMB. I wouldn’t get too carried away with making changes like the ones above. As the present NCB leadership who inherited just such a mess to clean up can attest, it’s not going to serve your organization well at all.

Laura Allen

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Louisiana Board under the Microscope

On May 20, Robert Travis Scott, a reporter for the Times-Picayune, filed the following story about the Louisiana Board of Massage Therapy, reprinted here in its entirety (Scott’s story is in italics):

Current and former board members of the Louisiana State Board of Massage Therapy are raising concerns about possible conflicts of interest in the agency’s hiring decisions.

The board, which licenses and regulates massage therapists, has seven volunteer members appointed by the governor based on nominations from professional associations. The board is backed normally by about three full-time paid staff employees. The board terminated its former executive director effective March 18 and started a hiring process.

One of the first applications was from Leslie Hill, an assistant to the special assistant in the governor’s office of boards and commissions, which collects nominations for the state’s professional and public service boards and suggests appointments to the governor. Hill said she was involved in the appointment process for members of the massage board. While she was in that office, seven members of the board were named in 2008 and three members were replaced in October.

Hill, who has a background in massage therapy, applied for the position of executive director, which led to a discussion among some board members of whether hiring her would create an ethics problem because of her former role assisting with board appointments. After consulting with the attorney general’s office, board chairwoman Mary Donker Syvertsen concluded that Hill’s hiring would not violate the state ethics code. The board hired Rhonda McManus as its new executive director at a salary of $75,000 and hired Hill for the No. 2 job in the office at $65,000, which was $30,000 more than her pay in the governor’s office.

The board’s employment ad called for an executive director and staff and made no mention of the salaries offered. McManus was not given the opportunity to participate in selecting and hiring Hill, who was to become her chief staff member. Syvertsen said she spoke with McManus the day the board was going to vote on the new hires and asked McManus then if hiring Hill would be OK.

Two board members have raised questions about the hiring. One of those is Bruce Evans, who said he has nothing against Hill but objects to the hiring process and did not think it was right for a gubernatorial-appointed board to hire someone from the governor’s appointment office. The other dissenting board member is Jan Debenedetto, who said Hill would be making a higher salary than past staff members and that she was surprise the new executive director had no say in hiring staff. “I think that the way it was handled was wrong on every level,”Debenedetto said.

Vernon Smith, a former leader of the massage board and massage associations, said he thinks Hill’s hiring has inappropriate. Syvertsen and board member Suzanne Schwing said Hill was qualified for the job and that nothing illegal was done in hiring her. Hill said she had no ties to board members and that her application and hiring was a fair and normal process.

Kyle Plotkin, a spokesman for Gov. Bobby Jindal, released a statement saying, “We expect any board, when hiring, to select the most qualified candidate in a fair process.” Another recent disruption at the board is the revelation that two board members have been under investigation for violations of board rules. The issue was brought up during a board meeting earlier this year by an agency attorney, who did not name the members. (End of story)

As a member of a state massage therapy board myself, I can vouch for the fact that board members (of any public board) are constantly warned to not only avoid conflicts of interest, but to also avoid any appearance of conflicts of interest. It appears that the Louisiana Board is walking on thin ice here, and kudos to the Board members who are questioning these actions. Although there is no clear-cut violation, there is certainly the appearance of one. I’d definitely like to be making $30,000 more a year myself, but I’m pretty certain that I wouldn’t want my ethics called into question if I was getting it through my ties to the massage board I’m serving on or have been associated with in some other capacity.

A couple of years ago, the Airport Authority in my county had a similar situation, where sitting members who were privy to information jumped headlong into a position to make themselves a lot of money, to the exclusion of other citizens who may have been more qualified, and who at a minimum should have been offered the fair chance to bid on the scheme that was proposed at the time. The Board members who were accused had a rather unique way of handling the charges of unethical behavior that were leveled against them at the time: they voted to suspend all discussion of professional ethics for a period of six months. As you can imagine, I blistered them a new one in the local newspaper.

Anyone who serves on, or is associated with, a public board is sometimes faced with an opportunity to advance a personal agenda, or their personal finances, through their access to insider information. It’s a potential abuse of power when that happens, and it ought to be called into question. If it turns out that no wrong-doing has been done, well and good. Most of the time, if the person in question acts to avoid the appearance of conflict of interest, they’ll have to pass on that opportunity, if good conscience and common sense prevails. Board members violating their own rules and/or their own code of ethical behavior is never a good thing. It will almost always come to light, and not in a good way.

Peace & Prosperity,

Laura Allen

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You Can’t Please Everybody

I’m not referring to giving a massage…I’d like to think everyone that I’ve ever massaged was pleased, but in this instance, I’m talking about my blogs.

I try to report the news in the world of massage politics, and I interject my comments and opinions. I try to spur people to take action when I think it’s needed, whether that’s contacting a legislator or one of the professional associations or just spreading the word to other therapists.

Of course, not everyone agrees with me, and that’s okay. I’m not here to win a popularity contest, and I would probably keel over from the shock if I didn’t get the occasional angry phone call or snarky e-mail, or opposing comments on the blog from people who don’t see it the same way I do. I don’t censor comments except for really profane language, so even if you call me a moron, it will still be printed.

Occasionally I get an e-mail from one of my mentors trying to rein me in. They’re worried that my comments are too controversial, or that I’m going to infuriate the wrong person or some entity on the whole. While I appreciate their concern, I have to follow my conscience, speak my mind, and let the chips fall where they may.

When I’m reporting on an action concerning a person or an entity that I name in the blog, I am careful to report what’s verifiable; I only want to print what’s true. While I state opinion, it is never my intention to slander anyone by printing unfounded malicious gossip and therefore leave myself open to a lawsuit.  Believe me; I don’t print half of what I hear. Some of it has no relevance to the political issue at hand. I leave out juicy details sometimes, because I don’t think it would serve any useful purpose to include it. I’m not the National Enquirer talking about Tiger Woods cheating on his wife, although I do hear some of that occasionally. If it’s not relevant to massage, it’s not my business.

Sometimes I know the person, and sometimes I don’t. Sometimes I meet them after the fact. That’s always interesting. If it’s someone in the legislative or representative community and they’re not at the top of my radar, I sometimes ask people if I’ve written anything about them!

When I am reporting on political action by someone in the massage world, it isn’t a commentary on their personal life. I can disagree with some action that one of the leaders of an organization has taken and blog about that, and it doesn’t at all mean that I think that person is a bad parent, or a bad friend, or an all-around bad person. It means I am wondering what the heck they were thinking when they took whatever action I am writing about.

Even though I may disagree with someone in one of our organizations, I still appreciate the fact that the person is in service at all, particularly when it’s a volunteer position, and most board member positions are just that.

Sometimes, though, there is the occasional incident of getting one’s self positioned in an organization in the interest of making a lot of money, if there’s any opportunity for that, or someone who has a personal agenda they want to promote for some kind of gain or even one-upmanship, professional jealousy, or revenge. Rules of professional ethics and by-laws get ignored, or changed in mid-stream to suit the agenda of the person(s) involved. In that case, it’s not about being in service, and I don’t feel bad for exposing that. The people I write about aren’t pleased. But then again, you can’t please everybody, and I don’t try.

Peace & Prosperity,

Laura Allen

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