Let me take you behind the scenes and show you how a strategic plan gets made. Our first major planning session took place in person during the Annual Conference, where we had one of the rarest resources in professional volunteer life: several uninterrupted hours together. Over those hours, we explored what ISSTD is doing well, […]
I have been trying to decide what to write about this month. At the end of July, ISSTD will be hosting our annual Board Interest Meeting, so writing about Board service felt like an obvious choice. As I sat down to write, though, I found myself listening to a familiar internal debate. One voice said, […]
A topic seems to emerge repeatedly in Board discussions and in conversations with members, though it often takes different forms depending on who is speaking. Someone says, I had no idea this was happening. Someone else says, There are too many emails. Someone says, I would have submitted something if I had known. Someone else […]
At the Annual Conference this year, we asked attendees to engage in dreamstorming with us. This concept, coined by Jennifer Gómez (2023), describes dreamstorming as a process in which we collectively imagine what it would look like and what would need to happen to make our dreams our world. We’ve started reviewing all that was […]
I drafted this from my hotel at the conference while still working on the welcome remarks I would give to fellow attendees. Moving back and forth between the two, I found myself returning to the question of what ISSTD actually is and how an organization like this continues to exist across time. ISSTD is not […]
Dear Colleagues, I have been thinking a great deal about what it means to serve as President of an international organization while coming from a worldview shaped within the United States, and primarily from positions of privilege within this country. That positional reality shapes what I see easily and what I have to work harder […]
Dear ISSTD Community, January often brings a natural slowing, at least for those of us in the Northern Hemisphere. Many traditions describe winter as a season for consolidation rather than expansion, a time when growth happens quietly beneath the surface before becoming visible later on. Not everything that looks still is inactive, and not everything […]
D. Michael Coy – 2025 PresidentLearning from the Past, Looking to the Future Dear ISSTD Community, Welcome to the December 2025 edition of ISSTD News, which you are reading in early January! This month, as is the case every year, I am, as outgoing President, accompanied here by incoming President Abigail Percifield and outgoing Immediate […]
Dear ISSTD Community, Welcome to the November 2025 edition of ISSTD News, which you are reading in early December! This will be my final ‘solo’ letter to you as ISSTD president. Next month, I will be accompanied here by incoming President Abigail Percifield and outgoing Immediate Past President Peter Maves for our respective reflections on […]
Dear ISSTD Community, Welcome to the October 2025 edition of ISSTD News, which you are reading in early November! This month’s update will be brief. I am currently writing from sunny – and windy – Wellington, Aotearoa New Zealand, where ISSTD just concluded its regional conference. I want to extend my most heartfelt thanks to […]
