March 2025 Community Update
March 6, 2025 06:59 PM
TABLE OF CONTENTS
********************************
ANNOUNCING THE NEW VICE PRESIDENT-ELECT, NICOLE BOWEN
The American Music Therapy volunteer Board of Directors is pleased to welcome Nicole Bowen as the new Vice President-Elect. Ms. Bowen was appointed in late February and announced at the Assembly of Delegates meeting. Ms. Bowen begins immediately in this appointed position, working closely with current Vice President Jennifer Sokira.
Process for Appointment: The 2023 Call for Service/Nominations did not produce a slate of candidates for the 2024-2025 board term. In 2024, we released a second call and offered a ZOOM drop-in with the President, Vice President, and Past President for interested parties. Individuals who responded to the Call were contacted, resulting in a potential candidate for Vice President-Elect, Nicole Bowen. Ms. Bowen met individually with AMTA officers. Simultaneously, Angela Snell, AMTA President, and Lori Gooding, Immediate Past President, worked collaboratively with the AMTA officers, the Board of Directors, the parliamentarian, and legal counsel to ensure that the process moved forward in compliance with the bylaws and that decisions were made as a group. In accordance with the AMTA Bylaws, President Snell appointed Ms. Bowen with the approval of the Board of Directors on February 19, 2025.
Ms. Bowen has been a practicing Music Therapist for over 20 years. She specializes in working with both mental health and special education and currently serves as the music therapist for St. Coletta’s of Greater Washington. Nicole received her undergraduate degree in Music Therapy at Florida State University and her graduate degree from Loyola University New Orleans. She currently resides in the Washington D.C. Metro area with her husband and two children. Nicole is passionate about bringing humanistic music therapy to everyone.
AMTA RECEIVES IRS EMPLOYEE RETENTION TAX CREDIT REFUND PROVIDING MORE FINANCIAL STABILITY FOR THE ASSOCIATION
In June of 2022, AMTA volunteer leadership took over management of the Association and brought on Newpoint Advisors. Working together, Newpoint Advisors helped AMTA leadership explore a variety of opportunities to move the Association forward, including potential new income streams. One identified income stream was the tax credits from the IRS related to COVID-19 relief. AMTA leadership worked with the accounting firm Manning Silverman, which specializes in filing IRS Employee Retention Tax Credit returns for COVID-19, and learned that AMTA was eligible for refunds from 2020 and 2021 as identified by the Federal Government. The accounting firm filed for the Employee Tax Retention Credit in June of 2023. As expected, it took time and patience for the IRS to work through the volume and validity of filed returns. On February 27, 2025, AMTA received the majority of these funds. This refund provides more financial stability for the association and allows AMTA volunteer leadership to move forward with identified priorities that support our music therapy community. Please join us in celebrating and moving forward as an association.
********************
GOVERNMENT RELATIONS UPDATE - STARTING A WEEKLY UPDATE
Judy Simpson, Director of Government Relations, the only staff focused on state and federal government relations issues, is working diligently with coalitions and partners to manage the extraordinary number of changes at the Federal level. With input, AMTA is committed to providing a Government Relations update to the music therapy community on Fridays, beginning tomorrow. The weekly email may provide updates, guidance, and calls to action related to the issues that impact our practice and the clients we serve. We will do our best to communicate via all of our channels (email, website, YouTube, and social media) to support community members in their advocacy. The weekly updates will be sent via email and posted to our channels. We encourage you and your colleagues to email any specific job changes or impacts to client services to governmentrelations@musictherapy.org, which is dedicated to government relations and advocacy efforts. Please add 2025 to the subject line with emails to this address.
Be sure to bookmark this page “A Changing World” as it will be updated with Calls to Action and resources for moving forward.
******************
MEMBER DATABASE UPGRADE
We are excited to announce the launch of our new association software, Your Membership. The data migration is planned for this weekend, beginning tomorrow, Friday, March 7, and completed Monday, March 10, 2025. Once completed, expect an email with details on how to change your password, which EVERYONE will need to do after the migration. Instructions will be sent once the migration is complete. NetForum, our current provider, is upgrading to the Your Membership system. The software supports the back end of our current website and AMTA bookstore. The new system will improve functionality and add features that AMTA did not have before. Current data will be migrated over to our new system. While we expect any disruption to be minimal, please be patient with this process. Watch your email Monday for more information on how to access your profile and change your password which will be required of everyone.
***************
SAVE THE DATES - AMTA SYMPOSIUM: September 14-17, 2025
Mark your calendars for the 2025 AMTA Symposium which will be held virtually from September 14-17, 2025 with asynchronous access extended through February 2026.
Call for papers and reviewers to follow in mid-March, 2024.
***************
WEBSITE USABILITY SURVEY - Coming later this month!
The Website Redesign committee wants to hear from you. Later this month you will receive an email inviting you to complete a Website Usability Survey. This survey is your opportunity to provide input into the new website and will help guide the redesign process as we move forward with our vendor inConcert, Web Solutions, Inc.
***************
MARK YOUR CALENDARS: REGIONAL CONFERENCE SEASON
GLR: March 13-15, 2025, Columbus, OH: https://www.glr-amta.org/conference-overview/
MW-AMTA: March 19-23, 2025, Iowa City, IA: https://www.mw-amta.com/conference/
SER: March 20-22, 2025, Birmingham, AL: https://ser-amta.org/conference/
WRAMTA: April 2-6, 2025, Tempe, AZ: https://www.wramta.org/conference/upcoming-conferences/wramta-2023/
NER: April 3-5th, 2025, Portland, Maine: https://www.musictherapynewengland.org/conferences/2025-conference/
SWAMTA: April 3-5, 2025, Dalla, Texas: https://swamta.org/conference/
MAR, April 3-5th, 2025, new hybrid format: https://mar-amta.org/conference
Back