It Is Over - So, an Interruption to My Scheduled Posts

The prayer shawl I started

OCMT 2023 is over - at least the live portion of OCMT 2023 is finished. I am interrupting my really short stretch of nostalgic posts on Sundays to reflect a bit about the Online Conference for Music Therapy, and how it has enriched my life over the years.

In 2003, I took a course on how to develop online courses in the School of Education at my local university. This was part of a minor in Curriculum and Instruction, and it was one of the first courses offered on this topic (at least, according to my professor). I developed an online course for education teachers on how to add music into the elementary classroom. I didn't have a place to put it, but I started thinking about using the internet to teach music therapists things.

In 2010, John Lawrence, a music therapist from Canada, sent out a message on the Music Therapy Listserv asking if anyone would be interested in starting an online conference for music therapists. After about a week of contemplating if I had the time, I sent him a message and joined two others on the organizing committee. (Of that original four, two of us are still part of this organization.) Everyone else, the other three members, were in Canada at the time, though one of us moved to Bahrain pretty quickly after we started up. When we started, I indicated that I wasn't really all that interested in a large role in the committee, but I was the only one in the states. I ended up being the treasurer because most of the fees that we had to pay were due in US currency. So, I started another bank account and became the treasurer for the Online Conference for Music Therapy.

The progress I made

Our first conference was held on a weekend in the summer. We arranged for two, eight-hour days of presentations streamed to music therapists all over the world. We had technical glitches and lots of stress when power went out at our primary platform area. The idea, though, took hold, and we were off!

The second conference was significantly different than the first one. All of a sudden, we had an organizing committee of about 12 people, including the original four. We decided to move from the summer months to February, and we also decided that we would move to a different platform - one that all of us could access if needed. The stressors changed, but the conference went off. There were glitches, we had presenters that were not familiar with video conferencing, we had people who had spotty internet, but we made it through - in our new 24-hour format.

The next conference was two years later, and we had become a more streamlined team. We were back to having five or six of us on the committee. We were back to most of the original team with a couple of dedicated others. Shortly after that time, we became a not-for-profit business with a formal Board of Directors and all the hoopla that happens when you move from being a single conference to a business.

In the years since, we have had people come and go from our Board. We have continued to offer online conferences, and we have also spent significant amounts of time working and dreaming and trying to figure out how to continue to provide high quality speakers while honoring the original intent of John and the rest of us on the original organizing committee. It has not always been easy, but here we are, at the end of our 12th conference.

We offer CMTEs for interested music therapists. We offer scholarships and 100% discounts for presenters. We sponsor other music therapy events around the world. We have return participants who come back year after year to engage in our conference. Yet, we also have lots of new people who show up and who have never heard of us before.

My role, often behind the scenes, is that of treasurer and continuing education director. I spend most of the months of January and February interacting with our ticket service, bank account, and sending out so many emails. I am also the primary gatekeeper - the person who tells people that they cannot buy a ticket to the event when the event is over. The person who has to direct so many people to the schedule. The person who is the bad guy at times and the impatient one at other times. The person who has so much stress that she is sick every single year during the week of this conference.

This year's adventures were of the technical variety. The day before the conference started, my modem decided to become finicky and spend most of the day blinking a white light. Not enough blinking to allow a technician to come to my home, but enough to completely cut me off from the internet. After 90 minutes of problem solving, the dang thing restarted itself. Of course, that made me think that I would not be stable during the conference, so I arranged for coverage, just in case. On the day of the conference, my power went out. That's not an uncommon situation at my house - the power goes off on a semi-regular basis here, but that just increased my stress and worry that something would go horribly wrong on my end of things. It didn't, but it could have.

The stressors of the Online Conference for Music Therapy, Inc. are something I live with every year. I come back every year to do the next one as well. The stress is worth it for me. Even 13 years after that first call for help in envisioning this conference, I keep coming back for more. I do this mainly because I get so much from our presenters, our attendees, and from the other Board members. I would have never met most of the music therapists that I have met from different places around the world if I hadn't answered that initial call. I have music therapy friends from everywhere now. I have met some of my favorite music therapy authors and fan-girled the entire time I was moderating their presentations. I have spent so many hours talking to music therapists from other places. By being part of this organization, I have been able to enrich my view of what music therapy can be - outside of my small environment.

At the end of every OCMT, I end up feeling pretty bad about what I do as a music therapist. There are so many amazing people in this profession, and I get a front seat glimpse into what they do. I often fall into the trap of my goblins and the thoughts start. "You could be doing these types of wonderful things with the MIDI equipment that you already have. Why aren't you? You should do this next week with clients." It takes so much energy to remember that what I do is pretty cool as well.

One thing I know is that I always find a renewed sense of purpose after this conference - more than the other conferences I have attended or viewed lately. AMTA doesn't give me that purpose anymore. I'm not sure why. That's a thought for another day.

I hope that some of you who read this blog will mark your calendars to join us for the 13th OCMT which will happen on the first weekend of February 2024. 

Time for me to go back to my regular life now. See you tomorrow!