Fundraising: As Mark
Twain said about the weather, "Everyone talks
about fundraising but no one does anything
about it." We are making a new priority of
fundraising, whose purpose is to give us more
help doing research, teaching, and running
the clinic. We have wanted a marketing
assistant but have not had the money. Karen
Hubble is chairing the fundraising committee
and is currently soliciting enthusiastic,
capable members. We are developing a budget
to define exactly how much money we need. We
will be starting a public relations campaign
to let the community know how important it is
to develop Control Mastery Theory, educate
mental health professionals, conduct
research, and provide mental health services
to the community.
Research: Psychotherapy research has
always been the central purpose of SFPRG and
is embedded firmly in our name: The San
Francisco Psychotherapy Research Group. John
Curtis is chairing the Research Committee and
he will need help from enthusiastic, capable
committee members. The Research Committee
will be a resource for people who want to
come to the group to do research. It will
catalogue what research has been done by our
group, what is currently being done, and help
plan a logical progression of research
questions and research projects to answer
those questions. It will also help document
and advertise the importance of our research
to justify raising money through fundraising
and grant writing.
Strategic Plan: One of the
problems with
strategic plans is that organizations work
hard to develop them and sometimes they sit
on a shelf. Our group developed a strategic
plan in the last two years. We are
resurrecting the Strategic Plan Committee
whose purpose is to review the current
strategic plan and make sure we are
addressing all aspects of it successfully.
We also believe the strategic plan should be
revised every three to five years and our
committee will be charged with starting the
strategic planning process again when it is
time. Carol Drucker, who worked so
hard on our initial Board retreats, will
chair the Strategic Plan Committee. She
will be building a committee of enthusiastic
and capable members.
Volunteer: Sometimes money buys an
organization help and sometimes people are
willing to work for free. We are creating a
Volunteer Committee whose job it is to go
into the community and find people willing to
help our group in our multiplicity of tasks:
research assistance, fundraising, envelope
stuffing, signing people in at conferences,
etc. etc. People in the community have a lot
to gain from donating their time and energy
to help us fulfill our mission. They can
learn about Control Mastery Theory by sitting
in on lectures or helping with research.
Marshall Bush is chairing the
Volunteer Committee and he needs
enthusiastic, capable members to help find
excellent volunteers.
Budget: Peter Schumacher is
doing an excellent job as Treasurer and
Chair of the Budget Committee. We
have a small budget committee and need more
members to help in budget planning, one of
the most important functions of any
organization. We would particularly love the
volunteer help of an excellent accountant who
may be a friend, spouse, or colleague to help
advise the Board on budget questions.
Building: The Building Committee
has been a successful committee chaired by
Karen Hubble. Our group will be facing
some important questions in the next four
years about where will be the best place to
house SFPRG, the clinic, and the current
therapist tenants. The Building Committee
will be starting now to address these
questions and will need help from people
knowledgeable about real estate, law,
renting, and possibly buying a building.
Bylaws: The Bylaws Committee is an
important group whose purpose is to flexibly
address the changing needs and identity of
the organization. We currently have a set of
bylaws that govern the organization which
were originally developed in 1990 and amended
several times in the last few years. John
Curtis is chairing the Bylaws Committee
which is currently addressing the issue of
whether to change SFPRG into an organization
whose membership votes for Board Members
rather than the current arrangement in which
the Board votes for its own Directors. The
Bylaws Committee will address this question
over the next month and make recommendations
to the Board about what direction to take.
It will also address other issues of
governance as they arise. The current bylaws
require that any amendments to the bylaws be
passed by a 2/3 vote of the Directors.
Clinic: The Clinic Committee is an
important liaison between the Board and the
Clinic. Norm Sohn is chairing the
Clinic Committee and will report regularly to
the Board about issues relating to the
clinic. Currently the Clinic is directed
by Jessica Broitman and its Training Director
is Carol Drucker. We want to thank Barbara
Sapienza, who recently stepped down from her
role as Training Director that she has
performed wonderfully since the Clinic's
inception. This summer, the Clinic is
graduating a substantial number of trainees
and is poised to welcome a large new group in
September. One issue the Clinic faces every
fall is that its census falls as graduates go
off into private practice with some of their
caseload. We are asking the members and
readers of the newsletter to refer to the
clinic and help market this important
resource to the community. Clinic revenue is
a potentially important source of income for
SFPRG.
Continuing Medical Education: SFPRG
went through a reapplication for CME
accreditation and a site visit by the
California Medical Association last winter
and was approved for the maximum of four
years re-accreditation. The CME committee,
chaired by myself, continues to
function as part of the Education Committee
to make sure that educational programs are
well planned, well documented, and follow all
the rules that allow accreditation by the CMA.
Education: The Education Committee
continues to do a tremendous job under the
chairmanship of Patsy Wood developing
conferences, classes, workshops, and our
post-graduate Control Mastery Certificate
Program. We encourage new members, old
members, and prospective members to attend
case conferences, big conferences, small
classes, March Workshops, and the
Post-graduate Program. We need enthusiastic,
creative, educationally minded people to join
the committee to help develop, deliver, and
market excellent new educational programs.
Human Subjects: Patsy Wood
has done a wonderful job as chair of
the Human Subjects Committee which reviews
research proposals to determine whether
appropriate standards are met in the
protection of human subjects.
Membership: Kathy DePaola
continues to chair the Membership
Committee which does a terrific job reaching
out to the membership and to the community
through this newsletter, town hall meetings,
and the Members' Mambo. The membership
committee is thriving but could use new
enthusiastic members. I would also like to
encourage readers of this newsletter who are
not yet members of SFPRG to consider joining
the membership. We are considering upgrading
the SFPRG website to include separate
webpages for each member.
Website: Since the SFPRG website
is so important for communication,
networking, and public relations, we would
like to give more appropriate attention to
upgrade and maintain it. We are creating a
new Website Committee whose job it is to
develop and improve the website, to make it
more user-friendly, to help project SFPRG's
image in the community, and to make
membership in SFPRG more valuable. If
people in the membership or readership have
expertise in websites and interest in
participating in the Website Committee,
please let us know. We have yet to choose a
chair.
Grants: Grants are another important
source of revenue for SFPRG and we are
starting a Grants Committee. We need
interested members and have yet to choose a
chair.
I have listed above the committees that
are new as well as those that have been
functioning effectively for years. As you
can see, we are attempting to do a lot of
work to develop and promote Control Mastery
theory, to do research, to teach, to run a
clinic, and generally to improve the quality
of therapeutic care as much as we can. We
need help from you who are interested in
teaching, supervising, planning, researching,
and administering. Please join us.
Steve Foreman
