The Pilates Method Alliance announced plans earlier this week to create regional and local chapters, a response to member requests in recent years. A new PMA Chapters Committee has been established, headed up by PMA member and certified teacher Andrea Jeanfreau, who brings 17 years of corporate organizational experience to the initiative.

PMA Executive Director Elizabeth Anderson said that regional chapters will create a better communication vehicle for the PMA and its membership, and an opportunity for board members to visit and have direct contact with the Pilates community. “We want to feel that there’s a lot of back and forth. We’re interested in getting direct and accurate feedback from membership about what they want from the PMA and how they’d like to contribute and what they’d like the organization to do,” she said.

The announcement was made in an e-mail blast that went out on Tuesday (which, in an uncanny coincidence, was released just about the same time we published a story on The Growth of Pilates Collectives). At the moment, Anderson says, they’re still working on structure and documentation for regional use, and putting together the affiliate agreement.

“We’ve had over 100 emails since Tuesday, from all over the country and all over the world,” Anderson told us yesterday. Internationally, Anderson said, the PMA has received inquiries from Italy, the U.K., Germany and Mexico, among other countries.

Jeanfreau, who is based in New Orleans, will be launching the pilot PMA regional chapter. She’s considering forming a Gulf Coast chapter encompassing in Mississippi, Louisiana and Georgia.

This is a big week for the PMA, which is also convening a Teacher Training Summit in Dallas on Nov. 7-8  in lieu of its regular annual conference.

Here’s the full text of the announcement, including contact information:

For a number of years, the PMA has been asked by members to create a structure for the formation of regional PMA chapters. We are happy to announce that we will be introducing plans for PMA chapters within the coming months.
 
At our November 2008 conference in Phoenix, we met Andrea Jeanfreau, a PMA member and PMA Certified Pilates Teacher™ trained by BASI Pilates.  For the past seventeen years, Andrea has worked in the pharmaceutical research industry, where she gained extensive organizational experience establishing chapters under a parent organization. 
 
We are delighted to say that Andrea has been appointed Chair of the PMA Chapters Committee.  She will begin by launching a pilot chapter headquartered in New Orleans where she lives, and after that, she will assist and guide others who would like to set up local PMA chapters in the US and abroad.
 
Each chapter will establish its own goals and objectives designed to recognize and support Pilates professionals at the local level. 
 
If you’re interested in starting a PMA Chapter in your area, please contact PMA Membership Manager, Denise Dixon, to express your interest. Write to denised@pilatesmethodalliance.org
 
We look forward to hearing from you!

Sincerely,
Elizabeth Anderson
Executive Director
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