by Mark LaRocca-Pitts PhD BCC
APC President
November 1 is always a new beginning for APC. Every year on this day, we install our new officers and our new board members. I am excited to be installed as your new president for this next year and I’m looking forward to a new beginning with you our members, our board members, our national staff, and our strategic partners. In addition, it also marks the beginning of our new financial year. Though all the numbers are not yet in, it looks like our previous year was financially sound.
This past summer I undertook a pilgrimage for purposes of self-renewal and the hope of a new vision for myself, my church, and for APC. Beginning in Paris, France, I walked 1400 miles to Santiago de Compostela, Spain over the course of three months. Following in the steps of millions of pilgrims since medieval times, my God was faithful in providing me the answers I sought. In conversations with fellow pilgrims, I learned that many of us undertake this journey in search of a new beginning, whether that be for social, professional, physical, or spiritual reasons. I discovered that deep within me, and I believe in many others, is a desire for a new beginning. Not just another new beginning in a long series of new beginnings, but a desire to live into new beginning day by day, breath by breath, moment by moment. Spiritually (or existentially) we live on the precipice of new beginning and if we can let go of the old, we might be able to lean into the new that is always unfolding before us. I call this spiritual path “The Way of New Beginning.”
APC is on the precipice of new beginning. Over the past few years, the board of APC has been busy with the possibility of merging first with all our strategic partners and then only with one other strategic partner. Though these talks ended two years ago, we have since been dealing with the aftermath. Grief, as we all know, follows its own path, but as an association I believe it is time we let go of this past and lean into new beginning.
APC is stronger than it has ever been. We have a dynamic, engaged, and growing membership. We have a spectacular and diverse board of gifted individuals. We have a highly qualified and hard-working national office. We have wonderful and like-minded strategic partners with whom we are working on behalf of our members, our clients, and our profession. The future lies ahead of us, not only as individuals, or as an association, but also as a profession. It is time we let go of the past and lean into our future and create our new beginning.
