Local Chapters, New Members and More…
The SFCT idea continues to gain momentum thanks to the growing membership and emergence of local chapters.
So, let’s start with exciting developments in the UK where the first meeting of the UK SFCT chapter took place in central London on 8th March 2010. 18 members attended, out of the 30+ total of UK membership. The group were very honoured to be joined by Aoki-san from Tokyo, the Japanese SFCT chapter head. The main topic for discussion was ‘what are the Unique Selling Points of SF in a recession?’ More details (and pictures) about this breakthrough event are on the SFCT website
Further good news on local chapters comes from Marika Tammeaid in Finland where 11 of 12 new members gathered recently and came to the conclusion that having their own SFCT chapter is the best model. They are also very interested in working with their Nordic colleagues. They plan to have meetings in May and September.
Efforts are also under way in Japan, Germany, Scandinavia and most recently Canada. We look forward to giving you more exciting news very soon. Meantime, your SFCT board and committee have been busy developing guidelines for running local chapters – the details will be posted on the website very shortly. Meantime, we encourage all members in countries not mentioned above to conspire on setting up a local chapter.
Membership growth continues to flourish and is increasingly diverse. Most recently we have David Shaked, Victoria Copas and Craig Sked, all for the UK, Gabriele Röttgen- from Germany, Kirsi Saukkala and Päivi Suokas from Finland, Brenda Zalter-Minden from Canada. All in all we are around 90 members from 15 countries!
Renewal Most of our members have by now paid their membership renewal fee: thank you so much. The new journal will come out soon and we needed the funds to publish it, so again, thanks!
A current member recently reviewed is John Brooker. John submitted a very interesting piece full of interesting clues titled, Yes! And… Facilitating Creativity and its Leadership . Many others are considering to be reviewed and there are around half a dozen reviews in progress. It is a great learning experience – so think about getting reviewed yourself. You won’t regret it.
Journal The November Journal has received many submissions which are currently under review. There will be two interesting case studies, articles on Self Determination Theory and SF, Victor Frankl and SF, book reviews, an interview with Chris Iveson, the research review – again, a fantastic read thanks to our great authors. Please help increase ‘InterAction’ readership (and membership) by spreading the word to your colleagues or think about writing an article yourself. You can share the Journal link on the website and also discuss the papers on our discussion board.
OD world summit invitation Mark McKergow established friendly ties with the OD world summit that will take place in Budapest from August 22 to 26. There are already half a dozen people from our community who will attend and put in proposals for workshops. SFCT is also looking into becoming a supporting organization where we will be in the company of organizations like the Appreciative Inquiry Network, the Open Space World, the Society for Organizational learning and the Change Facilitation Associates Network. All in all a great chance to put SF on the map of innovative OD approaches.
SOLworld conference in Bucharest As you probably know, there will be a great gathering of SF practitioners and people interested in the approach at Bucharest from May 6-8: the SOLworld conference. Many of us will be giving workshops or attending – a great chance to meet up and exchange thoughts and ideas!
Annual General Meeting – a reminder to save the date
The Annual General Meeting will take place on August 28th near Frankfurt, Germany. We will have time to work together in an open form (e.g. open space) and are really looking forward to your contributions.
Ideas and contributions There have been many wonderful moments in the last few months where people contacted SFCT an asked what they can do to help the organization grow and flourish – please continue to let us know what we can do for you and what you can do for us!
The Journal InterAction:
The recently published second edition of the SFCT Journal, InterAction has been well received and is a key element of our increasing credibility with academics. There have been many encouraging emails both from inside the SF community and from people in other related fields. If you have not yet opened your copy you can look forward to pieces by the likes of Coert Visser and Peter Szabo, plus a classic SF paper by Gale Miller and Steve de Shazer. Ben Furman is also interviewed on the intriguing SF aspects of ‘Not invented here’.
Wittgenstein meets SF
Kirsten Dierolf and Mark McKergow attended a meeting of the British Wittgenstein Society where Rom Harré, one of the main developers and proponents of discursive psychology and a Wittgenstein scholar, was the main speaker. Society members were interested and excited by the practical – business – applications of Wittgenstein’s work. Danièle Moyal-Sharrock, who wrote “Unterstanding Wittgenstein’s On Certainty” and is a professor at Hartfordshire University will be a keynote speaker at the SOL conference in Bucharest. She will talk about an interactive, discursive view of language acquisition and “socialization” and we will be able to discuss with her how a social, interactive view of organisational psychology makes change in organizations easier.
New members
We welcome our new full member Hans-Christian Nielsen, whose piece of work was reviewed by Mark McKergow and Jesper Christiansen. You can read about his piece of work on the website. Some comments of the reviewers included: “Hans Christian showed a great deal of skill in the way he introduced SF ideas into his organisation (in a very open, transparent and one-step-at-a-time way). His involvement of the stakeholders showed a real desire to bring people along with him. The feedback from the organisation has been impressive.”
Please check out the report on his project!
We also have many new members – welcome to all!! New members include (list of names):
John Wheeler, UK
Karla Viebahn, Germany
Gwenda Schlundt-Bodien, The Netherlands
Phillip Lievens, Belgium
Please continue to point out the benefits of SFCT for our members and SF in the world of organisations – we have been able to accomplish a lot with your support. The more people join the more we will be able to achieve.
Member reviews
Several new reviews are under way and we encourage others to sign up. There are a number of new audio/video instructional elements on the ‘Pieces of work process’ page including Peter and Mark’s excellent webcast and Alan Kay’s and Shaun Lincoln’s report on what it is like to be reviewed.
Become a full member or a reviewer
SFCT is keen to continue to complete more reviews and is also open to having non-full members participate as reviewers. As a reviewer you will get the value of participating in this terrific process and learn a lot from participating in the methodology. While it takes a clear commitment to participate in a review, the benefits of being reviewed or being a reviewer are significant. Take a look at the downloadable templates are at available at ‘Documents for the review Process’.
SFCT website
The web site continues to grow continues to be upgraded – Kirsten Dierolf, apart from being president, is the webmaster in residence. Please give your feedback to the website to her email kirsten@kirsten-dierolf.de. She welcomes constructive criticism (even about typos) and appreciative comments J.
Local Chapters
Our last newsletter reported on the concept of local chapters. The UK Chapter has now held a teleconference and arranged 2 meetings so 2010. The Chapter Heads to date are Mark McKergow (UK), Alan Kay (N America), Björn Johansson (Scandinavia), and Aoki-san (Japan). The Germans will decide soon who theirs is and will call a teleconference for members.
Several emergent possibilities for the local chapters are; regional (within countries) and national pre-AGM meetings, plus brief notes of Chapter meetings included on the web site.
Membership Drive/Renewals
January will be an important month in getting members to renew and attracting new members. As a special offer, everyone joining will receive issue #2 as well as the two 2010 issues. AND the first 30 to join will receive Issue 1 as a bonus. It really pays to let your friends know that its best to join us now.
Current members will soon be receiving your renewal letters via e-mail to renew including an opportunity to pay by PayPal.
Annual General Meeting – save the date
The Annual General Meeting will take place on August 28th near Frankfurt, Germany. We will have time to work together in an open form (e.g. open space) and are really looking forward to your contributions. If there is anything you would like to do for SFCT in the meantime, please let us know – you are more than welcome.
All the best from the SFCT team:
Kirsten Dierolf, president, website and administration
Alan Kay: marketing and member benefits, news
Peter Röhrig: vice-president, review process
Horst Reisch: treasurer
Mark McKergow: board member, journal, chapter development UK
Jenny Clarke: quality
Yasuteru Aoki: chapter development Japan
Bjoern Johansson: chapter development Scandinavia
Ingrid Reisch: members' relations
The annual ASFCT meeting was held in Friedrichsdorf in Germany, August 28/29, 2009. The founding team was most excited to welcome several SFCT members: from Germany, Jörg Waldau, Josef Scherer, Netti Kutsche-Roch and, from Finland, Marika Tammeaid. Our thanks go to them for the effort to be involved.
I had the opportunity to join the SFCT Board meeting for a day - thanks to the elegant board initiative of inviting members to come and discuss next steps for the association. It was a pleasure (but not a surprise:-) to find an energetic and target-oriented community building up a new kind of SF-forum for promotion and quality development of SF in organisations. I believe SFCT can act as a valuable tool for enhancing SF applications both on international and local level. Looking forward to the next event. Special thanks to Kirsten, the whole board and all in the kitchen at her house!
Marika Tammeaid, Finland
Year-end review: the year-one achievements were noted as; - 50 members recruited - the Journal published - a review process developed based on ‘clues’, with four completed - a high quality website - sound financials and SFCT legally registered. In total, a lot was achieved by your volunteer working team. SFCT is now clearly ready to grow further, particularly by involving members in the growth activities.
Discussion, agreements and action items:
Research: SFCT will commission, support and encourage research among members and others in areas such as; philosophical, SF outcomes and quality
Membership: Both growing and diverse. We will accelerate member recruitment by promoting benefits and advantages such as; the Journal, the review process, local chapter development, creating special offers and increasing SFCT’s web presence.
I was really surprised to meet not only all board members but also SF leaders from other countries. That showed to me how important this association can and will be to the SF community. At the same time I was pleased by the open mindedness of the board with respect to the ideas and interests of their members. Thanks for listening to our ideas and the encouragement to put them into practice. Josef Scherer. Germany
Local chapters: SFCT will encourage and support the development of country chapters by providing set-up and operating guidelines, clarity of the roles and relationship between international and local chapters, etc. The establishment of several key local chapters is seen as a priority.
Journal: The November Journal will have a wealth of articles and reviews. The goal will be to increase readership among members and non-members.
Governance: With the legal entity established the team explored issues around operating governance and agreed to develop guidelines for both the international and local chapters
Next annual meeting: Open space planning and AGM, August 27/28, 2010 at Friedrichsdorf, Germany. We hope to have many members joining us for a lively and dynamic dialogue.
How can you help? Do you have colleagues who’d like to join SFCT?
Please help increase ‘InterAction’ readership by spreading the word to your colleagues. You can share the link at http://www.asfct.org/journal2009-05.php
Don’t forget to tell them that 2009 SFCT membership is still only € 50 including two copies of InterAction (May/November). It’s easy to join on this website.
OTHER ITEMS & REMINDERS
New members joining recently are on the list of members on the website: http://www.asfct.org/memberslist.php
What does SFCT offer you?
- A chance for international professional recognition in your use of Solution Focused in business and organisational settings.
- The Journal ‘InterAction’
- A review process on a piece of work allowing you to become a full member, and ultimately a reviewer
- Opportunities at the chapter level to meet , network and learn regularly with SFCT colleagues (coming soon)
To become a full member: Full membership of SFCT is gained by an international review of an applicant’s piece of work. The new standard will also help clients wishing to ensure quality and professionalism. The ‘How To’ information is at: http://www.asfct.org/review.php
SFCT Board and Committee roles
Board Members:
Kirsten Dierolf, president - Peter Röhrig, vice president - Horst Reisch, treasurer - Mark McKergow, board member
Committee roles:
Yasuteru Aoki: chapter development Japan - Jenny Clarke: quality - Björn Johannson: chapter development Scandinavia - Kirsten Dierolf: website and administration - Alan Kay: marketing, member benefits, news - Mark McKergow: journal - Ingrid Reisch: Member Relations - Peter Röhrig: review process