Council Changes ITA Structure & Elects New Board

26-28 March 2019 – Members of the International Training Alliance (ITA) Council met in Keswick, England 26-28 March 2019 for the Council’s semiannual face-to-face meeting.

At the last face-to-face Council meeting in March 2017, Chair Peter Nicoll said: “We need to put structural issues onto the Council agenda for the future. We have moved from a fellowship alliance to a more structured formal organization. There are many issues and changes we are facing that have structural implications:

• • Move from a loose fellowship to a formal and legal organization
  • Managing regional development
  • Managing development into different languages
  • Curriculum development
  • Addressing questions such as “What’s best for leadership development for local church leaders?”
  • Issues relating to and facilitating multiplication, releasing and control of LMC and LMC-type training
  • A new transformational training development program we propose developing
  • Integrating and implementing mentor-coaching into all ITA initiatives.”

So while the Council members enjoyed times of fellowship, the main work of the meeting was carefully considering proposed structural changes. After two years of prayer and consideration, the ITA Chair and CEO presented written proposals to the members of the Council in advance of the March meeting.

During this historic meeting in Keswick, Council members went through all the proposals, discussed them, made modifications, and voted unanimously to propose their adoption. Because the official ITA By-Laws stipulate that changes of this magnitude must be discussed, tabled and then voted in during the next Council meeting, the Council followed this requirement. The Council met again (virtually) on 7 May 2019 and voted unanimously for the following historic structural changes and officially elected the new ITA Board.

The Council looked at the different aspects of the overall functioning of ITA:

• 1. Partnership (Council)
  2. Governance (Board)
  3. Leadership (CEO and Leadership Team)
  4. Management (Management Team)

The partnership is made up of all participating organizations, which form the Council. See the Council representatives HERE.

As the Alliance continued to grow, it was more challenging to gather all the members together for governance purposes. At the same time, there was no desire to diminish the input and involvement of all the partners. Therefore, the Council decided that partner representatives would nominate and elect a smaller representation from their number to create a Board of at least five members to carry on the governance. The Council members will continue to:

• • Represent their organization to ITA and ITA to their organization
  • Attend council meetings
  • Nominate potential board members
  • Elect board members
  • Give feedback on behalf of their organizations as recipients of ITA Board minutes
  • Approve new alliance member requests from organizations
  • Give suggestions for future strategies and combined efforts
  • Ensure their organization receive the benefits and meet the commitments of full ITA partnership (as recorded in the Levels of Partnership section of the ITA Policy.)

The Council went through the process of nominating and electing a new governance board. See the new ITA Board HERE. This new governing board will meet once per quarter and assume the on-going governance of ITA affairs. In this new role the Board will:

• • Elect its own officers (chair, vice-chair, secretary)
  • Approve the annual ITA budget
  • Ensure ITA is following legal requirements
  • Chart progress toward achieving ITA goals and objectives
  • Set new policy
  • Approve requests and new initiatives from the CEO and Management Team
  • Report to the Council via the CEO

Under the new structure, the CEO will:

• • Report to the ITA Board
  • Receive annual appraisals from the Board Chair, along with another Board member
  • Maintain communication with partner organizations via partner representatives
  • Chair Council meetings (the new Board will elect its own chair to lead Board meetings)
  • Form a Leadership Team to help think through new proposals and issues to present to the Board
  • Be responsible to select and give oversight to the ITA Management Team, giving them annual appraisals

The ITA Management Team will continue to function as it has in the past, working with trainers, coaches, logistics volunteers and participants.

The Council noted that the target audience (participants in training) has shifted for ITA, having started out for cross-cultural workers (primarily expatriate missionaries), it has expanded to include national leaders, pastors, indigenous teams and some business people. The changing audience along with contextualization issues in different parts of the world call for a spirit of openness to change and flexibility as ITA moves forward into second decade of existence. This calls for more input from leaders from different parts of the world. ITA leadership desires to honor the past and take the best of LMC to continue to apply the principles of the transformational training approach to leadership development around the world in different contexts.

Other significant items the Council addressed:

• • Accepted Wise Choices for Life and World Outreach International in the Alliance as full partner members of ITA
  • Declared our desire to increase diversity from across the global Body of Christ represented in the ITA Council, Board, Leadership and Management Teams
  • Reviewed core values
  • Rejoiced at God’s provision in terms of budget and personnel–both exceeding expectations

Please praise the Lord together with us for His faithfulness, guidance, and provision for ITA! It has been and is amazing–all glory to God. Please PRAY for God to continue to work in and through the leaders involved in this global, collaborative adventure of faith that is ITA! The desire of all the members of the Council is to faithfully steward what God has so graciously entrusted to ITA–to energize and multiply leaders on mission across the global Body of Christ.