I want to introduce myself to those who do not know me. My name is Virginia González-Vélez, and I live in Madrid, Spain. Since June, I have assumed the position of president of ACTO, and I am very proud to be in this role. I am a partner of Radiance Partners LLC, a coaching school based in Virginia, USA. I am an MCC coach and a trainer of professional coaches in Spanish. I love the word alchemy, and my purpose in life is to generate alchemy in the environments in which I find myself.

The energy of transformation that has been flooding the planet has not escaped ACTO. We want to use this energy to strengthen coach training and coach practice in positive ways.

Last year, the ACTO Board decided to include individual coaches in our name, as we have included them in our membership for years, and they are active members who are boosting ACTO’s activity. I want to highlight this change as I view it as relevant to our mission and our identity. Moving forward, our work will be focused on the needs of our individual members, as well as the Coach Training Organizations that have been our lifeblood since ACTO was founded.

For organizations, we hope to support your work on diversity, inclusion, equity, and belonging. We believe that this will benefit the coaches who are trained by our member organizations and those who are attracted to this work that represents us and makes us more human.

With this writing, I would like to open a space for communication with members. Every month, after our Board meeting, I will write my reflections on my experience on the Board and share with everyone the issues that seem most important to us on the Board.

I welcome your feedback and suggestions for improvement in our work.

The members of the Board this year are: Jim Smith Joanne Louis, Johan van Bavel, Jude Richardson, Melanie Sanford, Rei Perovic, Steve Galloway, Sharon Brown, Shareefah Sabur, Sukari Pinnock-Fitts, and myself, Virginia González-Vélez. Visit our page to learn more about our board (https://actoonline.org/board-members/).

Before each meeting, the chairs of the different committees share a report so that we are all up to date before the meeting starts.

Monday’s discussion focused on three main topics:

  1. The retreat that the Board will have on the 3rd and 4th of October. We talked about who is going to facilitate the process and the issues we are going to deal with, such as:
    • Getting to know the board members better and welcoming new members so that they can better understand how we work and the possible need for changes.
    • To work on the strategic plan for the two years of the new presidency with all that plan entails.
    • To draw up an agenda where actions are established with dates and those responsible for their execution.
  2. How will we work together with the different committees to support each other and communicate with the members more constantly?
  3. How to improve member communication through email and social media and to invest in making our website easier to navigate.

I am proud of the people who make up the Board; all of them are professionals with a lot of experience and very hard-working people on a human level. This can be seen in the courage and respect breathed into every communication.

I would like to bid you farewell until the next communication.

Happy day, happy life.

Virginia González-Vélez
President of ACTO