Dear AMTA Friends,
How are you all doing?
Life has thrown us, and our profession, an
immense
curve ball.
Your Vermont Chapter Board of Directors has had 3 conference calls to discuss the best strategy forward. On Monday,our Governor extended the Stay At Home Order until April 30th, but we all know and recognize this could be extended even more and that our personal practices may not come back to being the same as they used to be for quite a while.
These ARE uncertain times, and there is such a plethora of information and opinion out there. As your Board, w
e can't tell you what the
best decisions
are for you, but we can provide information and sources for financial (and emotional!) relief during these difficult times.
1) The National AMTA Office has been communicating with member therapists and continues to be a great national resource for country-wide information, with links to other trusted information sources. They have updated their landing page (
amtamassage.org)
to provide latest updated information and links.
2) The Federal Government has allocated emergency funding for receiving unemployment benefits, expanding it to cover self-employed business owners, as well as small business loans (which you may be entitled to use as a grant). In addition, there is an emergency order prohibiting eviction due to financial reasons in this time of emergency. The links are in the section below this letter.
3.) While we wouldn't ordinarily promote an individual business or individual, these days,
all brevity is welcome fodder.
Your
AMTA-VT. Chapter President, Suzan Seymour, has started her
own YouTube Channel,SuzViews,
and just completed her first series titled, "Isolation of a Massage Therapist: The 12-Day Challenge". Her perspective is inspiring and uplifting during these uncertain times as we navigate our way forward as therapists, with no one to put our hands onto.
Click on the link above or
this one
to see her recent birthday video. And enjoy!
Also, Board Member Denise Gebroe is also doing fitness workouts on her company FB page,
DG BodyWorks
and Melissa Marks is doing self-massage on her
Instagram page
.
Your Board: doing what we can to help you thru these times
~
4.) Additionally, we suggest using the
AMTA Vermont Facebook Group Page
to discuss these subjects with other massage therapists, to connect in some way, during this isolation. We are also in the process of setting up a
Private AMTA Vermont Massage Therapy Group Page
for us to converse on...please look for it soon!
As always, your Chapter Officers care about
you
and how we can come together as a community; please feel free to let us know your concerns and how we might best serve you.
We WILL get through this. One day at a time. One moment at a time. One breath at a time.
It's all we have right now: this moment.
Let's live it to the best of our ability.
Warmly,
Your Vermont Chapter AMTA Board of Directors
