Wow, what an amazing year. As I'm sure you've witnessed or heard, our "Coaching Excellence: Foundations and Frontiers" Regional Conference on Coaching was a huge success! We sold out with 255 attendees coming from across the region to hear internationally recognized speakers, attend excellent educational sessions, and network with an amazing community of coaches. One new member who came up to me during the conference summed it nicely, "I love this community and can't wait to get more involved." If I had to describe the conference in three words they would be: professional, fun and enlightening. Keep an eye out for a summary of the participant feedback which we will be sharing with you in the coming weeks.

The conference marks the pinnacle of our 2011 accomplishments. Here are some additional highlights:    

• Rebranding PACA as ICF Philadelphia
• May Business Meeting and changes to the By-Laws
• Second Annual Bahama Breeze Summer Sizzler
• Cynthia Loy Darst's presentation on Presence via Skype from California
• Live Coaching was re-instituted and initiated structured networking activities at dinner meetings
• Promotion of Linda O'Neill to Executive Director
• Appointment of Jill Magerman as Chief Play Officer
• Susan Race Volunteer of the Year Award was reinstituted
• Launched "Ask the Coach" section in the Philadelphia Business Journal
• Going "green" with launching a cloud-based filing system for our files
• Member access to order your own magnetic name badge for $15
• Four-step easy member registration and automatic renewal process (with improvements to reduce errors)
• Launched ICF Philadelphia on Twitter
• Internal Expo (to take place at the December Dinner Meeting)
• Included regular ICF updates in our monthly newsletter

Plans for next year include: celebrating International Coaching Week Feb 5-11 2012; Credentialing Special Interest Group, and a coaches practice coaching group. We are in great hands for 2012 with Marjorie Johnson as President and Clare Sautter as President-Elect taking the helm in January. Having worked with both of these amazing women over the past year, I can personally vouch for their leadership abilities, creativity, and commitment to ICF Philadelphia. Again, we are in very solid hands!

This is my last month as your President. I was recently asked by a couple fellow Board members about what impact I think we've made this year. I believe that the largest impact we've had is reigniting the enthusiasm ICF Philadelphia/PACA from within our member community and a widening of interest from the community at large. In addition, we strengthened our infrastructure. And, finally, we enlisted the interest of leaders throughout the region and beyond while strengthening our own leadership capacity. In short, we truly helped to advance the art and science of coaching through the three pillars of our 2011 strategy: Leadership, Recognition and Sustainability.

Together, we have contributed to and/or participated in activities that have engendered enthusiasm, laughter, and a strong sense of community.   I personally feel proud to be part of this community, as I hope you do. We are entering some very exciting times in the world of coaching. I am pleased that I will continue to serve on the Board throughout 2012 as Immediate Past President. ICF Philadelphia is a strong, supportive "home" for all coaches in the Philadelphia/Southern New Jersey/Northern Delaware region. It is very nice to be "home."

In closing, I'd like to express deep appreciation for your support and enthusiasm felt throughout this past year. I am very grateful for the opportunity that you have given me to serve you and the organization. I cannot imagine a greater community in which to lead.

With gratitude and respect,

December Dinner Meeting  

Date & Time:  Thursday, December 15, 2011, 
6:00 pm-9:00 pm

This will be no ordinary dinner meeting. This is the time of the year when we take time to celebrate, to reflect and to look forward to the year to come. Join the amazing group of members and guests at this event and celebrate who you and your colleagues are; reflect back on your accomplishments and successes and intentionally declare what you need and want for the year to come. By just attending you are guaranteed to meet at least five participants and possibly many more!

A very special part of the evening will be the Members' Showcase. You have the opportunity to exhibit any product, service, program, course and/or special skill you have that you would like other ICF Philadelphia members to know about. A great benefit of your ICF Philly membership is making and getting referrals. The Showcase will be a great opportunity to raise awareness about your coaching practice and learn more about your fellow ICFP members. To make sure we have enough space for everyone.

Please reserve your spot in the Showcase by contacting Jill Magerman at JillCoach4U@comcast.net by Dec. 8th. Thank You!

Congratulations ICF Philadelphia!   

By Marjorie Johnson, LCSW, ACC
ICF President-Elect & Conference Co-Chair

Raving reviews of our 11-11-11 conference are still rolling in! In case you weren't there, "Coaching Excellence: Foundations and Frontiers" was attended by 255 from NY to DC and beyond. Here are some of the highlights:

Ed Model, President of ICF Global, presented on the "Future of Coaching" and reminded us that we are part of a community of 18,000 coaches around the world in 140 chapters. ICF is spearheading the effort to make coaching recognized as a self-regulating profession, and, in fact, the ICF credential is the gold standard among companies hiring corporate coaches.

• Annie McKee, Ph.D., our esteemed and world renowned Keynote presenter, reminded us that ours is a truly noble profession. One which must be characterized by empathy and deep integrity to truly make a difference for our clients, organizations and communities.  The importance of emotional intelligence was further explained and illuminated during our lunch panel who discussed dancing in the moment with the client integrating 5 (or 6!) Domains of coaching while being completely in tune with each client's individuality and humanity.  
• Helen Riess, M.D., from Harvard University, presented compelling neuroscience research exemplifying the impact on empathy in patient care. When we show up with true empathy our biorhythms literally align with our client's.  
• In addition to over 25 presenters and moderators, conference attendees had the opportunity to network with several leaders of the Global ICF board who added breadth and depth to our experience. We received glowing compliments from them about the high level of quality and professionalism reflected in all aspect of execution of our conference. Cheryl Vermey, ICF Global VP wrote: "The highest compliment thatI heard was from my fellow ICF Board member, Bernie Siegel, who said "we can learn from what you did here today. "Bernie was a prior president of the NYC chapter.

Cindy Howes, Conference Co-Chair, and I want to express our deep gratitude to our entire committee and the many additional volunteers from our chapter in planning and running the conference. For the past 12 months many volunteers worked tirelessly to bring this success to fruition. The commitment to excellence and professionalism was surpassed only by the warm, supportive spirit of our fellow coaches.   I would be remiss if I did not thank our Committee members: Ginger Jarrett, Suzanne Perry, Dean Becker, Becky Scott, Helen Morris, Chris Coward, Amy Haller, Frank Podietz and Roy Millsap.   Their efforts were supported by dedicated committee members including: Blythe Hoyle, Colleen Bracken, Marcy Shoemaker, Elizabeth Hechtman, Clare Sautter, Christo Shutte, Adina Laver, Diane Seader, and the tremendous support of our Executive Director, Linda O'Neill.

Please join me in thanking them all. Lastly, I want to once again thank Cindy Howes who was an absolute joy to co-chair with! Thankyou Cindy for your dedication to every detail and more!

Here are a few photos of the conference we can all enjoy:

Dr. Annie McKee addresses a packed house at the opening session of ICF Philadelphia's Nov. 11th "Coaching Excellence: Foundations and Frontiers" Conference.

Ed Modell, PCC, President of ICF, gave us a glimpse of the bright future he sees for coaching throughout the world.

A distinguished panel of experts tackled the six domains of coaching over lunch. From left to right are panel moderator Elizabeth Hechtman,M.S., CPCC, Eddy Mwelwa, Ph.D., Birute Regine, Ed.D., Bob Dunham, Helen Riess, M.D., and Dana Kaminstein, Ph.D.

Corporate Coaching Corner

By Yoon Cannon, Corporate SIG Leader  

As corporate coaches we understand the tremendous value and importance for our clients to set aside regular "time-outs" to meet with their coach (us).

Why? So, together we can re-evaluate key issues, and gain greater clarity and perspective. Our clients want to leave equipped with wiser foresight, so they can confidently move forward in their professional growth and performance.

So, how about us? Should we be any different in our own quest to develop wiser foresight as we navigate the direction of our own coaching practices?

Some of us are more diligent and disciplined than others at taking those all-important "time-out's" from running our solo practices, so we can devote time to the strategic planning side of growing our coaching practices.

Whichever camp you fall into, there is a game-changing benefit you are missing out on by trying to learn all your lessons in hindsight alone.

If you have not yet joined your peers on one of our Corporate Special Interest Group (SIG) monthly calls, don't miss our December SIG call scheduled for

Friday, Dec, 16th from 9-10 am

The bridgeline to call is (209) 647-1000

Participant Code: 531-842#

Here is a wonderful opportunity for you to give and receive from a small group of fellow ICF Philly SIG members. We will have a facilitated discussion on:

1. Best practices in 2011 - what would you identify as the one action that improved (client results success, referral success, marketing success, etc.) your coaching practice?

2. Painful lessons learned -- what was one lesson you learned in "the school of hard knocks" in 2011 that could help save other coaches from wasting time, energy and money?

3. Sprouts -- what is one area where you saw traction and progress beginning to take sprout, but has not yet fully developed into the results you were looking to achieve?

This call is not a forum for new or emerging coaches, but a "think tank" and peer advisory / support group for corporate coaches with established practices.

Join us on Dec. 16 to connect with your peers in our Corporate SIG. Calendar the date and kindly rsvp your attendance to YoonCannon@ParamountBusinessCoach.com

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