T'ai Chi Foundation
TCF NewsletterOctober 2010
In This Issue
Closing Out a Big Year
Spotlight on Steve Shulman
Mark Your Calendar

U.S. Winter Training
Chicago

U.K. Winter Training

December 27, 2010 - January 2, 2011

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Closing Out a Big Year for TCF

Antonia Hendriks, President
        
Dear All,
 
We have made a great deal of progress in 2010 so far:
  • A curriculum review committee has met regularly over the year and will be presenting the results of their findings very soon.
  • A strategic plan retreat and final document have produced the first formal TCF strategic plan. Board members Roger Noon (U.K.) and Peter Schwartz (VA) are working on the action plan, with Foundation Administrator, Penny Harrison, as we speak.  This plan is the result of diligent work and will be executed in the next three to five years. 
  • We are looking for ways to continually improve communications which you, the member, have asked us to do.  For example, we are planning to include a short statement or bio on each member showing his or her expertise and/or profession in addition to the usual name and address information.  In this way we can see the wealth of expertise within our group and have the possibility to ask each other for advice, and more importantly, we would present our school, our affiliates and members in a more professional manner.
  • Summer and Winter Trainings are held in the U.S. and Europe and we continue to get rave reviews from attendees. 
  • We are providing more marketing materials for our affiliate schools to use, posted as PDFs on our website. 

    We are becoming a 21st century Tai Chi organization!  Feel free to send us your blogs to post on the home page of our website.  And keep looking for more changes and improvements to come!
     
    We are one,
    Antonia

 

Roger Noon

 Board Member, Roger Noon

 

I am 43, married to Sue with two kids, Ali (6) and Emma (8). We're happily settled in St Albans, just north of London. I have been a student of Tai Chi since 1996, finding the School in St Albans in 2000. I have been an apprentice teacher for 3 years.

 

Professionally, I have a background in engineering project management and have worked for the banking, health and charity sectors over the past 15 years. I am still looking for the thing I really want to do.

 

I am committed to my personal development, and by extension to the development of those around me, to our society and to our planet. I frequently struggle with how best to focus this commitment in thought and action. As I get older, I feel more drawn to noticing and being rather than doing.

 

I am interested in being a member of the Board because I was asked and found myself comfortable agreeing. I hadn't given the idea any previous thought. I don't generally commit myself to things if I'm not prepared to be wholehearted and enthusiastic so, other attributes aside, this is the minimum I will be offering. I enjoy working with people who are passionate about what they are doing, and although I'd call myself fairly diplomatic, I'm more concerned with honesty than agreement.

 

I spend much of my working life facilitating, collaborating, practicing being innovative and aspiring to success in a team environment. I understand how to manage projects, I'm comfortable with the common computer applications and I have experience in professional coaching....these skills may be of value in this role.

Steve Shulman

 

Board Member Steve Shulman

 

After coming to New York City in 1974 to attend Manhattan School of Music, I've been a professional musician in the area since then. I've performed in many styles of music, from symphony orchestras to brass quintets, Broadway musicals, dance bands and everything in between. I've been fortunate to tour across the U.S. and in Japan. Currently, along with my NYC free-lance work, I spend my summers performing in the orchestra for the Utah Festival Opera Company as their principal trombonist.

In 1981 I began my studies of T'ai Chi at the School of T'ai Chi here in NYC, attending classes taught by Margaret Olmsted, John Shackford, Peggy Watson, among the rest of the NYC team. In 1984 I joined the apprentice program, taking my first apprenticeship at the NY Winter Training. As a beginner I had the opportunity to teach with Peter Angelo, Bob Etherington, Lee Felton, Matsu, Alice Sherer and many others. I found a lot of inspiration and growth in getting to know the instructors in the school!

Soon after my apprentice-teaching began I started helping out with the behind-the-scenes work in NY, first in helping with the bookkeeping, eventually becoming part of the administrative team. Later this grew to assisting with the summer and winter trainings for a number of years. When the New York house incorporated as a legal entity distinct from the training division (later this work folded into the TCF), I started serving on the NYSTCC Board of Directors.

In 2007 I joined the faculty at Manhattanville College (in Westchester NY) as an adjunct instructor of T'ai Chi, teaching beginners classes to the students there, and I have been teaching there steadily since then. I feel very fortunate in being able to bring T'ai Chi to a younger generation of students!


Contact Info
Foundation Administrator

Penny Harrison
tcfpenny@gmail.com

penny@taichifoundation.org