Newlsletter from the ICF Nordic Board December 2008

 

Newsletter from ICF Nordic
In this issue:
 
  • President's Message – 2008 ICF Nordic President Carina Kindkvist (Sweden) shares her view of the year;
  • ICF Nordic Goes Local – There are now five independent country chapters;
    • Extraordinary members meeting on October 31st 2009 – minutes and new bylaws
  • ICF Regional Service Center – ICF Global Regional Service Centre in Europe
  • ICF Nordic Working Groups –

    • Member Service (incl. statistics)
    • Credentialing (incl. statistics)
    • Web
    • Ethics (incl. ICF brand guideline)
    • Marketing & PR
  • ISO – ICF is working to secure an international standard for coaching
  • ICF Conference 2008 in Montreal – report from Kaj Hellbom
  • ICF Leaders Conference 2008 in Prague – report from Kaj Hellbom
President's Message

Now, my year as a Nordic President is almost over. It has been one of my most instructive, hectic and interesting years ever. To see ICF from the inside has been very interesting and I encourage you to volunteer for ICF. There are a lot of great people doing a lot to advance the art, science and practice of the coaching profession. A reflection is; what would the coaching industry look like if there were no ICF? I would like to thank you all for making this possible.
 
The big change this year was the transition from Nordic to the five countries. We now have a board in each country and it is nice to see all the bubbling activities. In Norway they had a successful conference two weeks ago, in Sweden there are plans for the coaching week, in Denmark they have had a one day seminar about deviant personalities that was fully booked and one more planned for next year, in Finland they have already had 12 member meetings just to mention a few, and Iceland just formed their coming board.
In the ethical group we have clarified how you as a member and how coaching schools and companies can use the ICF brand. This is an important step to make the coaching branch professional and trustworthy. I have seen a lot of web pages where members, probably without knowing, misuses the ICF brand. I even needed to change my own website!

We have had long waiting lists for credentialing but it is getting better. A couple of new coaches are approved as assessors and we have now 7 assessors who speak Norwegian, 8 who speak Danish and 13 who speak Swedish. I would like to take this opportunity to thank all coaches who have been educated to become assessors. We are happy to have you working on reducing the waiting time. One assessor told me that it is very evolving and I encourage more of you to apply.
The number of coaches supporting ICF continues to grow. The Nordic region registered member number 900 last week and the Nordic chapter is now becoming number 5 in the world. Two of the new country chapters next year will be among top eight.
Next year I will serve as Past President and mentor for the new Nordic Network. The Network consists of Kaj Hellbom who will be President together with the different Nordic country chapterPresidents and Presidents elect.
Early next year I look forward to the International Coaching Week (February 1-7, 2009). See the web for more information and download materials to use during this special week at this link to "International Coaching Week".
ICF Headquarters will also present the ICF Global Coaching Client Study early 2009. A full report will be available in time for the International Coaching Week.

A lot of our members have been working to bring ICF Nordic to a higher level, both as members in the Nordic board, the country boards, the local chapters, or as members who have brought up good ideas and taken actions to set up events etc. Thank you for your efforts in all of these roles. Your help on having our association grow locally, allows us to expand globally for the benefit of all our members. I sincerely hope you also gained something positive from this unique partnership with the ICF this year, which will last for years to come. Thank you for your support!
We in the Nordic board wish you all the happiest New Year ever.

Sincerely,
Carina Kindkvist
ICF Nordic President 2008
 
ICF Nordic Goes Local

On the members meeting October 31st 2009 the meeting approved the transition from ICF Nordic to five country chapters and the belonging change in the bylaws. You will find the minutes from the meeting here: Minutes
And you will find the new bylaws here: ICF Nordic bylaws from January 1st 2009  
 
ICF Nordic is really going local now: We are moving from a model with one regional ICF Chapter to a country-based model and all five Nordic countries have established their own ICF chapters. The country chapters will all become Chartered Chapters directly linked to ICF Global. It is a truly exciting process that will - with the help from all of us- lead to better services for the members in each country and more influence on chapter leadership from the local membership groups.
 
What will happen with ICF Nordic? ICFN will not disappear. It will continue as a coaching association connecting with the five Nordic chapters into a Nordic network. The main focus of this network will be to share knowledge and experience. ICFN will notanymore collect membership fees;  the fees will be directed directly to each country. ICFN will with regards to its network function create visions and plans for future events and activities on regional level. ICFN will also work as a bridge for wider networking in the whole European region.
 
The President for the new ICF Nordic in 2009 will be ACC Kaj Hellbom and the President-Elect ACC Bergsteinn Isleifsson. The members of the network will be the nationally elected country chapters’ presidents and president-elects .
 
Kaj Hellbom
 
Welcome our new supporter in Brussels, Isabelle Maes at the ICF RSC Europe
ICF Global opened its Regional Service Centre (RSC) for Europe in Brussels on 1st October 2008.  The ICF RSC is managed by Isabelle Maes and available to all European ICF members within European business hours. Isabelle Maes has an extensive background of working at global corporations and is fluent in English, French and Dutch and has a basic knowledge of German.
These are the key roles of the Regional Service Centre in Europe:
·         Assist members and non-members on all ICF-related questions (general information, credentialing, education programs, ICF conferences, etc.)
·         Enhance communications with chapter leaders in Europe and improve possible interactions between the European chapters, for the benefit of all chapter members
·         Schedule and facilitate Virtual Education and chapter leadership webinars within the European Time zone
·         Assist in the processing of new and renewing members
·         Assist in the development of new ACTP programs in Europe
·         Develop European Resources applicable for ICF members in Europe
·         Help with the development of new chapters in other European countries to improve the ICF global network
·         Provide ICF Global with more European information to be used in “Coaching World”.
 
This means that ICF is now closer to the Nordic countries. Through ICF RSC in Brussels, support in our own time zone is now available.  Isabelle is looking forward to getting in contact with the Nordic members of ICF. The purpose is to strengthen the connection with ICF Global. With help from Isabelle we hope that all the possibilities and resources ICF provides will become more accessible to the Nordic members. Isabelle encourages us to contribute with articles, success stories, research, information about events etc. to ICF Global. She has even offered her service to help adjusting texts from “broken” English.  Lacking knowledge of English should not be an obstacle.
We encourage you in the first place to contact Isabelle when you have questions about or need help from ICF.
Even though local chapter representatives in your country will remain available and able to answer questions, they work voluntarily, and should use their energy and resources working with items that strengthen ICF and the coaching industry.
 
Coordinates for any ICF-related inquiries:
Isabelle Maes |Manager, Regional Service Centre Europe
International Coach Federation
Phone: ++32 2 745 47 60 | Fax: +32 2 745 47 61
ICFRSCEurope@coachfederation.org
 
ICF Nordic Working Groups
 
In 2008 the Nordic board members have been handling the running process of ICF and supported the Nordic countries to become independent. However there has also been some common focus on the Nordic level:
Membership Service

The membership service group has supported each other and shared experiences. Support has been given to members in all Nordic countries and there has also been much focus and work done about the renewal process. We have developed a specific survey to be used by the local chapters aiming at collecting  information and opinion from visitors about ICF. We also had a profitable meeting with the local group hosts in the Nordic countries with the purpose of exchanging experiences. However there are big differences between the countries. The different countries had their own surveys, activities etc.
 
It is exciting to see that conferences will be held next year in most of the Nordic countries. Please keep informed through the web! Conferences are excellent opportunities to get personal contacts, development, network and CCEU’s. CCEU’s are Continuing Coach Education Units, which can be of great interest for those who want to apply for ICF-credentials and/or renew their existing ICF-Credential.
 
Through this link you will find statistics on member growth  since last December: Member growth
 
Lisbeth Wathne Svinø

Credentialing

Through this link you will find statistics  on credentialed coaches development: Development credentialed coaches
 
When it comes to ACC credentialed coaches, 15,6% are Nordic members compared to 6,6% Nordic members of the total number of members in the world.
In April the statistics showed that 30% of all applications are not correct or complete. If you want to hurry up your application I suggest you check your application and accept to do examination in English. The waiting time for ACC exams in Nordic languages is from June, 2008. As of this writing, the number of ACC exams needed is 31 in Danish language and 55 in Swedish language. The  number of PCC/MCC exams needed is one in Danish and one in Swedish.
ICF Global never communicates assessors’ names for the simple reason that the exam should remain professional and to avoid any influence on the assessors.
 
 
Web
 
This autumn the Nordic website has gone through a major face lift.
ICF Nordic has decided to support all countries in establishing their own websites for local support in the future. Until the local websites are ready, the Nordic web will continue to assist the country chapters.
Coaches from each country chapter have participated to a  web editor training to enable them to publish articles on the Nordic website.
 
ICF Nordic will keep a working and updated website until the end of 2009. As of Today there are no plans beyond that.
 
Bergstein Isleifsson

Ethics
In 2008 we in the Nordic Ethical group have started our work on initiating a series of (5) telephone meetings. Our focus has been to establish a group consisting of persons from each respective country and with good confidence and trust among the members.
Gathering around the most frequent/common issues of ethical dilemmas we have started our own dialogue with the view to expand it further. The aim of this is to understand where the  differences are  in the Nordic countries in terms of Ethical discussions within the coaching industry and related associates. We would like to encourage all Nordic countries to have a vital and open dialogue about this.
The whole group planned to meet at the Coaching Conference in Oslo in November to summarize our work and to meet in person. And so we did.
We also met with the Norwegian Ethical Group to listen to their experiences and way of working.
Our aim for 2009 is to support each country in their own way of extending this dialogue. And, if needed, give some support on a more practical level. We think that this work primarily will be monitored by each Ethical country person in eachrespective chapter board or, as in Norway, by an independent group.
 
ICF brand

There has been a lot of confusions around the ICF brand and about ACC, PCC, MCC, ACTP, ACSTH and CCE. Earlier this autumn we created and sent guidelines to all members on how to use the ICF brand. We hope it gave some clarifications.

If you missed the guidelines on how to use the ICF trade mark you can find them at the following links:
In Sweden and Denmark we continue to use the word certified.  
ICF Program Approval Glossary of Terms
Accredited–Used to describe coach training programs with the ACTP designation.
Approved–Used to describe any coach training program approved by the ICF: ACTP, ACSTH, or CCE.
Credentialed–Used to describe individuals holding the ACC, PCC, or
MCC credential from the ICF; does not refer to training programs.
Certified–This term is not used by the ICF, though it is often used by individual training programs to refer to their graduates.

The time limit for you to change your advertisement was set to the end of this year.
Mats Ögren
Marketing & PR
During the year, the marketing group has mentored the countries with marketing and PR issues. ICF Global has provided us great material to develop a professional and ICF branded marketing. And we encourage all country chapter boards to keep on using the material that will be found on our online community http://communities.coachfederation.org/p/us/in.
After discussions with country chapter boards, the Marketing Group has decided to allocate its budget to the countries, since all of them have different kind of needs. We hope that the money will help the countries to become stronger on their local level.
In the June Nordic newsletter we mentioned members advertisement to each other. We decided that this should be on country level. We encourage you to use the ICF online community at www.coachfederation.org. You can find information, training packages and dates for the next training sessions at http://www.coachfederation.org/ICF/For+Current+Members/Member+Resources/icfoc.htm.
Tiina Harmaja
 
ISO
 
In the June newsletter we informed you about the work done by ICF Global to secure international standards. This work is still in progress. You can read more about how ICF  plans to enhance the ICF credentialing program in this report made by Lene Rønning-Arnesen who is participating to the work as a member of the ISO Task force. Link to report:  Enhancing the ICF credentialing program 
 
ICF International conference in Montreal
 
This year the ICF International Conference was held in Montreal. The keynote speakers were Vandana Shiva, Peter Senge and Matthieu Ricard - all very famous speakers in their own specialty area. The major theme that evolved from the keynotes was globalization and sustainability, and this theme echoed through many of the over 40 workshops.
 
This conference is always a big event: A lot of participants (1400), a lot of sessions and a lot of networking and inspiration. I highly recommend that each ICF member at least once participates to the International Conference. Have a look at this year’s conference on the ICF website, www.coachfederation.org. Next year’s conference will be hold from December, 2-5, in Orlando, Florida.
 
Kaj Hellbom President Elect 2008
 
ICF European Chapter leaders meeting in Prague
 
Twice a year the ICF chapter leaders from around Europe meet for informal discussions in a European city. The goal is basically to share experiences and knowledge and to get a picture of what is happening inside the ICF. This year we first met in Copenhagen in April, and then in Prague in December. We had participants from 16 countries meeting up in Prague. Issues on the agenda were Chapter Leadership and Chapter Financing. What makes these meetings extra valuable is that ICF Global leaders are participating in the meetings, providing us with information about developments on the global level. The Global leaders also received valuable input from the chapters, which have resulted in many initiatives. One example of this is the process that led to the establishment of the new European Regional Service Centre.
 
Kaj Hellbom President Elect 2008
 
ICF in the rest of the world
 
There is a lot happening at ICF Global level. Have you read the latest newsletter?
http://www.coachfederation.org/Downloads/Docs/CoachingWorld/dec_08.pdf
 
On behalf of the ICF Nordic Board
 
Carina Kindkvist
President, ICF Nordic