SCTRI Board of Directors: Report to Members
October 2025

We worked together the first two days to undo our restraining forces for taking up our Board member roles on behalf of our organization (living our theory). We continue to successfully weaken the restraining forces we surface that are isomorphic in our organization, specifically this time undoing past-adaptive roles which prevent us from working at the system-as-a-whole level. We experienced a sense of repair and healing with much release of free energy and discovered increased access to good humor, cooperation, and connection.

Vision and Mission

A major focus of our “task” work this time was our vision for the future of SCTRI. Based on the recommendations of our ad hoc vision group, the Board endorsed two fundamental statements that we see as non-negotiable pillars of SCTRI:

• We commit to SCTRI being a living experiment in the application of SCT to the running of our organization.
• SCTRI’s mission is to contribute to Knowledge and Research, Education and Training, and Community Development and Contribution.

We agreed to use these statements as our overarching framework to guide us as we discover how we as an organization want to move into the future. We set about assigning different vision work groups throughout the organization to explore how to keep emerging viable pathways for development and transformation; this work will include an outreach to membership input.

Recognizing that we/SCTRI are a living experiment with much to offer the world was moving and exciting. Our strong sense that we as a Board are fully owning our vision was enlivening. Toying with phrases, words, slogans to capture our vision in a nutshell was a fun, playful bout of brainstorming.

We noticed an increased openness to our new members’ differences/resources, specifically organizational development knowledge and skills. We see ourselves on the cusp of transforming as an organization and are feeling the excitement and the turbulence of opening to change. Experiencing the satisfaction of trying new experiments together emboldened us on our journey!

Conferences and Online Presence

As we entered this journey together, we discovered support for both an in-person conference in 2027 alongside an additional commitment to online opportunities as a way to reach two different audiences. We will work over the next period of time to see how that's going to be, but we have an equal commitment to the online access and the in-person work.

Finances of SCTRI

We heard a clear voice from members (voice of the group?) who want transparency about our financial decisions. In response, we want everyone to know that we are discussing whether to keep the physical SCTRI Center, located in Philadelphia, or sell it. For now, we have decided to keep it for two more years with new excitement around seeing some possibilities for increasing our in-person opportunities in the US as well as generating income. In that time, the goal is for the Center to meet its ongoing costs, that is, not run with a deficit.

Building off the success of the in-person foundation level workshop led by Susan Gantt and Peter Dunlap at the Center in September, we have a commitment to offer at least four other in-person events at the Center over the next year. Our goal is to capitalize on the success of this event, building on the new energy emerging for this kind of entry-level in-person work. We are also continuing to build out our online offerings and looking for ways to monetize in line with our vision and mission.

For a bigger picture of the organization’s finances, you can access the Finance Group’s report to the Board on the website under the Members tab. [Select File Sharing & Storage/Action Groups/Board of Directors]

Leadership within SCTRI

We took time to acknowledge the fact that four Board members missed our meeting due to health issues. The heartfelt feelings for our missing members also contributed to the warmth, cooperation, and lightheartedness of our work together. Making space, feeling the loss, we recognized that we are an aging organization, an aging Board. The increased orientation to this reality gave renewed energy and focus to the development of our succession planning, and we renewed our commitment to foster emergent leadership energy in our members. This support is vital for SCTRI’s long-term survival and development – and another area for exploration. Be sure to let a Board member know if you have energy and curiosity about leadership roles!

At each Board meeting we re-constitute the Steering Group, which meets weekly between Board meetings to coordinate the ongoing work of the organization according to our vision and policies. We supported Claudia Byram, Fran Carter, Dorothy Gibbons and Norma Safransky in remaining in their roles and welcomed Alida Zweidler-McKay as a new member. Mike Maher is a member as a function of his Director role. Our two administrators, Kathy Lum and Jan Vadell, also attend this meeting each week and contribute valuable resources to our work.

As always, we welcome any members who have completed the Authority Issue Group to consider joining the Board of Directors. If you have interest, please contact Jim Peightel.

Board of Directors
Claudia Byram, Fran Carter, Rowena Davis, Susan Gantt, Dorothy Gibbons, Doug Johnson, Nina Klebanoff, Jennifer Langdon, Annie MacIver, Mike Maher, Jon McCormick, Jim Peightel, Norma Safransky, Beulah Trey, Heather Twomey, Ros Wood, Alida Zweidler-McKay