A D P C A
The Association for the Development of the Person Centered Approach.
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A D P C A The Association for the Development of the Person Centered Approach. Home Articles Becoming a member Events Journal Links Newsletter Photos Responsibilities |
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Where are ADPCA members? I am a part of the British group planning the ADPCA meeting in Manchester in the year 2001. I was interested to find out which geographical areas people attending ADPCA conferences come from. If, as I had assumed, most people attending are "local", how many "local" people could we hope to attract when the conference is in Britain. I started by constructing a spreadsheet armed with the ADPCA membership list and the list of people who attended the 1998 meeting in Boston. I was surprised by some of the results. First I looked closely at the Boston conference; of the 111 people attending, 77% have addresses in the USA. The remainders were Europeans, except for 1 from Bermuda and 3 from Mexico. For my purposes I defined the following States as "local": Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania and Washington DC. 50% of those attending came from those states and therefore 27% from other States in the USA. 27 people came from Massachusetts although only 13 of our members have a Massachusetts address. The conference obviously succeeds in attracting local people who are not members but, hopefully, are interested in joining. The largest single group came from Massachusetts (27 people), Illinois was second with 15, followed by New York State with 14. The next largest group came from England - the home of 6 attendees. Three people came from each of the following: Mexico, California, Florida, Louisiana and Ohio. From the 1998/99 membership list we appear to have 215 members. distributed by continent: Asia 8, Australia/NZ 1, Africa 3, Europe 69, and North America 134. This means that 62% of our members are North American and 32% European. The "top 10" States/Countries are: England 29 If England, Scotland and Wales are added together and called Britain, the British figure increases to 34. I take great comfort from these figures as far as our 2001 conference in Manchester is concerned. We are confident that we can attract a significant number of local people - within 50 miles of Manchester and further afield in Britain. Almost a third of the membership live in Europe. Many of these members face considerable difficulties: language, payment of membership in US dollars, and difficult exchange rates for those living in Eastern Europe (we have members in Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Croatia, Hungary and Poland). 2001 looks like a good time to hold a meeting in Europe. I try to make it easier for Western Europeans to maintain their membership in ADPCA by paying me in sterling with either British cheques or Eurocheques. I pass the money to Robert Oppenhiemer, who converts it into dollars. Sometimes I gather a stack of money and send it to Julia Rabin in dollar travellers checks. Is the time coming when we should consider having a bank account in Europe too, either in sterling or the new Euro currency, to make it even easier for the Europeans to join the association? 8 of our members live in Euroland: the 11 countries who will use the new currency. It would be good to debate this subject before the meeting in Louisiana next year. Allan Turner. Allan@pctmk.powernet.co.uk |
