[Oe List ...] A ToP Trainer Responds

[W. J.]

Milan and colleagues,
   
  I'm not totally clueless about what's going on with the ICA-USA board and staff.
   
  But, like many who are proficient in using our methods and who participated in their evolution, I was never officially 'baptized' as a ToP Trainer, so I haven't seen the relevant documents.
   
  Could you share these documents with us, so we can actually READ what the ICA-USA people wrote? If they never joined the ToP Trainer network, I wouldn't expect them to be on ToP of it. But I DO expect them to be respectful and sensitive to the collegial issues. So I'm shocked (but not surprised) at what you imply they've done. 
   
  So put their cards on the table, and let us all take a look. They need to be held accountable for their decisions.
   
  Marshall Jones
  

Milan Hamilton <skillmedproj at dslextreme.com> wrote:
                I continue to be mystified and totally puzzled at the arrogance and insensitivity, and might I say, ignorance (in the technical sense of the word) of ICA US Board and staff in terms of awareness (or unawareness) of what is going on out in the real world of facilitation and training.  As one who goes back to circa 1967 in terms of starting the journey of becoming a change agent and spreader of methods of participation, I am speaking only for myself as a ToP Trainer and a member of the ToP Trainers Network and one who was actually in attendance at the Denver meeting in July 07.
   
  The latest communications which I have read from the ICA USA board president and the interim executive director just amaze me:  Not even an acknowledgement of the issues contained in the resulting August 31 response to the “white paper” written by the interim ICA USA executive director.  All I could see was a sort of reactionary hard line response, without much thoughtfulness to the issues raised by the group meeting in Denver.  Did I miss something?  Has there been dialogue of which I have not been brought up to speed on any of the issues raised?
   
  Branding?  Is ICA-USA not aware that the brand awareness of ToP methods is somewhere is the low .00000001 percentile in the nation at the present time?  And as to those who are authorized to hold public courses and advertise etc., are they not aware that those who were present in Denver represent the big percentage of the delivery system for these methods.  I am wondering who exactly the ICA-USA staff and board thinks is this ToP Trainers Network?  Also, in view of the recent support that has been given to this network, and in view of the intent of the “TTN” (so named by ICA-USA staff and board) to organize itself to be more able to ensure the delivery of ToP methods, what makes ICA-USA staff and board so arrogant as to believe that they were being asked to devote time, money, etc. to TTN, rather than the other way around.
   
  There seemed to me to be the intent of those present in Denver to give ICA-USA the opportunity to step up and match the rhetoric with action in terms of support.  “Participation” and “partnership” seemed to be the watchwords.  I am not sure how the knee-jerk response of ICA-USA staff and board fit into that picture.
   
  As I mentioned, I am only one ToP Trainer providing input.  But I am still mystified at what I perceive to be the continuation of a “non-participatory” and “hard-line” and “acting without thinking” modus operandi on the part of ICA-USA board and staff, from the summarily dismissing of all those who gave 30 to 40 years of their vocational lives to the (stated) mission of ICA, to the total ignoring of those who actually are delivering these methods in the world.
   
  I for one have already shifted my financial support to ICA International and do not intend to provide any further support to an organization (so-called) that seems to me to have ceased to exist.  I for one do not intend to pay any further dues to an organization I no longer consider to be in existence (although I am totally paid up for this year and intend to exercise my full rights to speak as a ToP Trainer).
   
  My last comment is addressed head-on to ICA-USA staff and board members:  Do you believe that you are fulfilling the mission of ICA?  Look around you in the world and see what the ICA is really and what it is accomplishing.  From my vantage point, all I see is a dying or dead institution.  ICA-USA is dead.  Long live ICA
   
  Milan Hamilton
  Co-owner, Participation Works
  80 North Center Street
  Redlands, CA  92373
  909-793-4482
  participationworks at dslextreme.com

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