At the January dinner meeting we kicked-off ICF: Philadelphia's 2012 Theme: "Celebrating and Strengthening Our Community". We had the opportunity to hear a brief description of the Board roles and key goals for this year. It is an exciting time to be a coach, both locally and globally. New chapters are being added regularly around the world (currently over 104 countries) and accreditation / certification standards are becoming the norm. ICF Philadelphia is committed to helping you, our members, grow professionally, continue your coach education, build your businesses and serve our larger community through professional coaching.

This is a great time to ask yourself, what will you become involved in? Be sure to attend the March 15, 2012 dinner meeting when you will hear more about specific events, committees and goals that you can help champion.   ICF Philadelphia belongs to you, our members, and we need and want your involvement and your input.

One need you've expressed loud and clear is for certification support and guidance. We have heard you! Clare Sautter, ICFP President-elect is planning a conference call to help support you with the Minimum Education Requirements (MER) which goes into effect April 1, 2013. All ICF members will be required to have completed at least 60 hours of coach specific training to be a member (or maintain membership) with the ICF. We support MER because it helps protect both members and consumers of coaching and the integrity of our organization by establishing a clear, verifiable standard for coach specific training.

Members also requested more live coaching -- which we featured at our January meeting. The turnout of more than 50 people was fantastic! You will see more opportunities to learn, practice, network, connect and develop relationships. Look for news about "Coaches Coaching Coaches" peer coaching organized by Meredith Betz and Frank Podietz.

Lastly, Feb 5 - 12, 2012 is Coaching Week.   We encourage you to share this with your network including social media. See information in this newsletter or sign-on to our members page to see all the support and excitement we are generating this year to leverage your talents for Coaching Week.

February Dinner Meeting: 

Yoga In Coaching   

Date & Time:  Thursday, February 16, 2012
6:00 pm-9:00 pm

Yoga is a vast body of knowledge, the primary purpose of which is to bring balance, harmony and awareness to our life and living. As with most Eastern knowledge systems, learning begins with a personal practice where the practitioner actually experiences the impact of the practices before sharing with others. This working session will be based on this approach - learning from the inside out.  

Deepa Awal is an experienced executive coach who uses her knowledge and practice of yoga to guide her work with her clients. When appropriate, she uses visualizations and centering practices to enable clients to reach a place of authentic understanding of their goals and how to accomplish them. Deepa is a certified teacher with the Srima School of Transformational Yoga. She teaches Yoga pro bono to caseworkers at Action Aids and has an ongoing yoga and meditation practice.  

Katrina Ogilby, PCC has a thriving health and wellness practice. She is also a dedicated yoga practitioner and certified teacher. Katrina uses yoga teachings and asanas in her coaching to shift energy and expand perspectives. She is dedicated to helping people make life changes that promote their physical, emotional and spiritual health. She currently teaches yoga to teens at The Agnes Irwin School.

Each speaker will share some of the practices that she has found useful in coaching. They will present exercises they use consistently with clients. Audience members will experience firsthand the impact of these practices and have an opportunity to use what they learn during the meeting in their coaching.

It's Here -- Assistance with Credentialing

There have been a number of people who have approached members of the Board about assistance with credentialing. I'm in the process of getting my ICF credential right now so it's near and dear to me!

One of the requests that we've had is to help our members understand the new Minimum Eligibility Requirements (MER) that the ICF is implementing. There is a lot of information on the website but we know that you may not have time to go through and digest it all.

If you'd like to know the nuts and bolts, here's a call for you! Please feel free to invite others that may be interested in this topic. We'll record the call and post to it the member's section of our website so if you can't make the call - not a problem! (You do need to be a member of ICF Philadelphia to access the recording though).

Call Details

February 23rd at Noon EST

Dial-in: 1-218-862-1300

Conference code: 871501

This is just the first call in what will be a series. Many of us are starting to consider coach training and need deciding which school is right for us and our needs. I'm going to put together a series of calls that will feature a different coach training program per call. More on that in March!

If you love the idea of these calls and want to help, please let Clare Sautter at Claresautter@comcast.net

There's still time to Join Us for International Coaching Week

By Kayte Connelly, CCT 
VP, Marketing, ICF Philadelphia

ICF Philadelphia (ICFP) is encouraging all members to join us in celebrating International Coaching Week, February 6 - 12, by introducing others to the world of coaching. If you are interested in participating in offering complimentary coaching sessions, we have prepared a press release template for you to send to your local weeklies and monthlies that serve your immediate vicinity. You will find it in the member section of the ICFP website.   

You are also encouraged to distribute this to any other organization of which you are a member. For example, if you are a member of a professional trade association affiliated with a particular industry, please send this press release to their newsletter editor to alert them to your offerings.   

As ICF Philadelphia attempts to cement the awareness of coaching as a profession, we need your help to alert others to the presence of this chapter as a place where coaches meet to further their education and network.  

Please login to the member section of the website

for further instructions directing you to the press release template and a follow-up survey that we are asking you to complete.   

Many thanks to fellow members Phyllis Sisenwine, Ed Hunter, Laurie Gripshover Taylor and Deeawn Roundtree who have volunteered for this effort. If you are interested in serving on this committee to help spread the word about our chapter and the importance of coaching, or if you have any questions about Coaching Week, please contact Kayte Connelly at marketing@philadelphiacoaches.org.

Becky Scott
2011 Susan Race Volunteer of the Year

Member Profile - Cindy Howes

 ICF Philadelphia members know Cindy Howes (www.millennialconsultants.com) as last year's co-chair (with Marjorie Johnson) of the superb Coaching Excellence conference held in November, organized by ICF Philadelphia members. The conference was transformative for many attendees and received excellent reviews.   In fact, Cindy views the conference as a turning point for herself, encouraging her to do more program development and consulting, where she feels she can more readily see the concrete results of her effort.

Cindy is not a newcomer to either program development or consulting. She spent over 20 years at 4 major corporations: PNC, PECO, Vanguard and AstraZeneca, coaching and doing program development. Cindy rounds out her rich and significant professional experience with teaching organizational development and leadership as part of the master's degree program at the Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine.

Cindy's focus is on coaching professionals who want their lives to matter. She has created a program focusing on "Sustainable Careers in the Era of the 4 Year Job," to assist people to use their highest level of skills, recognize their most enjoyable accomplishments and find joy and achievement to grow in a chaotic, ambiguous world.

Interestingly, the accomplishment of which Cindy is most proud is the November conference, where she played a significant leadership role in helping the chapter, which didn't have a lot of experience but was willing to take a leap of faith, set their goals high and then enjoy tremendous success. She realized from the conference that she likes being in charge and managing to success.

Cindy has always remembered the results of a workshop she attended where she was challenged to come up with a mission in life in 10 minutes: in her case, to gain and share wisdom. She continues to live her life that way.

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