Dear International Playback Theatre Network Members,
Happy New Year! At the end of 2013 the IPTN Board met in Bangalore for an extremely busy and productive 4 days. We want to update you on some of the changes we discussed.
We started the Board meeting looking at where the IPTN is today, how and why it started, how Playback has grown over the last 39 years. We also faced the difficult questions of “how relevant is the IPTN today?” To help us address these questions we engaged a facilitator. We worked with him for an intense 9 hours on the second day of the Board meeting. Board members from different parts of the world with different histories in the Playback community spoke honesty and with passion about their experience of the IPTN and the future they saw for it. We spoke of the changes in the world especially through increased contact via the internet. The facilitator urged us to be clear about the role of the IPTN: what it’s mission is now in the second decade of the 21st century and how it works towards achieving that. Above all we believe the International Playback Theatre Network’s great strengths are that it is independent and that it creates opportunities for mutual influence and exchange, valuing input from all levels of experience and all walks of life.
So how will the IPTN do that in 2014 and beyond?
A Website team is working to make the website more user friendly and more interactive. We want members to be able to add profiles, events and photos as well as gain information about local and global members, practitioners and events.
A membership team is working to working to ensure the IPTN services its members well. We aim to increase regional and global membership and increase connections between members.
We have created a new Public Relations role that ensures the IPTN values and communications are consistent. They will also manage the IPTN presence at gatherings, regional and global conferences.
The budget proposed for 2014 reflects a big investment of member’s funds in strengthening accessibility, connections and communications globally. And of course the IPTN will be supporting the Montreal team as they prepare for the 2015 International Conference in Montreal.
A long discussion was held regarding changing the name of Interplay. We couldn’t decide. Instead in the next Interplay you will see we have opened this possibility up to all members to participate in. If we did re-name Interplay, what would it be?
This is a brief summary. The minutes of the IPTN meeting in Bangalore will be on the website very soon. More detail about all of the above will follow over the next couple of months. Our next Board meeting is via Skype on 8th February. Stay tuned for more information!
Your input is valued. The current website is still operational. All board members have email addresses on the website. Email us with your thoughts, questions and suggestions.