Message from the Chairman and Chief Executive

Dear Members,

As your new Chairman and Chief Executive we wanted to introduce ourselves to you through the ISTD website. The fact that this introduction comes from us jointly simply illustrates how like-minded we are about the future direction of the Society and the role we believe you can play in ensuring that it is a bright one.

The appointment of a new Chairman and a new Chief Executive provides the opportunity for a review of our much loved organisation. This review is not only intended to ensure that we all remain clear about and committed to its objectives, but also that we are sure about how we intend to achieve them in the best interests of the Society and its members.

At the meeting of the ISTD Council held on Thursday 21st September, it was agreed that in order to take the Society forward to its next stage of development it needed to address a wide range of issues, including those that the membership were directly concerned with. The period of review is therefore already underway and, working closely with our colleagues on the Council of Management and the Grand Council, we very much want to hear your views before arriving at decisions.

We want to engage, consult and communicate with you at every level so that decisions made in the future are in the best interests of the Society as a whole and take full account of the wishes of all its stakeholders.

One of the great strengths of the ISTD is the rich breadth, internationality and diversity of its membership and from time to time it proves difficult to accommodate that wide range of slightly conflicting needs, interests and levels of professional experience, especially at a time when Government agencies look to adhere to a firm set of criteria for teaching standards. As a Society, we are of course totally committed to the highest standards of teaching.

We may need to become more outward looking and to learn from the experience of other awarding bodies and, possibly, to accept that we might not be able to be all things to all people but we should start from the position of protecting our members’ interests and promoting their true value.

As always there are many challenges to face but we embrace those challenges positively and vigorously and want to ensure that, together with all of you, we turn challenges into opportunities and that we achieve significant progress in the coming months.

DANCE Magazine and www.istd.org will enable us to keep you informed of progress as well as providing a direct means for you to engage with it. Both of us will be out and about hoping to meet as many of you as possible in the coming months and we very much look forward it.