August 18, 2020
Greetings to ETIA Instructors:
It’s been quite a long time since I have communicated with you and I’d like to take this opportunity to bring you up to date on what has been happening with Gordon Training International. Before I do that though, I want to let you know how impressed and excited I am about the revival of
ETIA.
First, I want to express my deep appreciation to each of you for all you have done and continue to do to spread the Gordon Model. In particular, I would like to mention the involvement of Kathryn Tonges who has been a PET Instructor for 42 years and is now your new President. I have known Kathryn for quite a few years and we have an excellent working relationship. Now that she has taken on this leadership position, there has been a marked improvement in the course activity which gives me renewed hope for the future of the Gordon Model courses in Australia. I also want to acknowledge her son, Scott, for the very professional and inviting website that he developed for ETIA.
50th Anniversary Edition of the PET Book
2020 marks 50 years since Dr. Gordon’s classic book was first published. Last year, our daughter, Michelle, and I updated it with more relevant examples and situations. The book has also just been published in French and will soon be available in Chinese.
Online Book Clubs as Preparation for Gordon Courses
The pandemic is having a huge impact on our organization since we strongly believe that the Gordon courses need to be offered in a classroom setting—where participants can work together and can actually practice and learn the skills with a certified Instructor. For this interim period, we have developed online book clubs for the PET, TET, LET and Be Your Best books with the idea that participants can become very familiar with the Gordon Model through reading the books and will then be very well prepared to participate in a course once the pandemic is under control. These book clubs are proving to be quite popular, whether Instructors offer them to people who aren’t familiar with the Gordon Model or as a refresher to course graduates.
International Gordon Conference
We were planning to hold an international conference of Gordon Representatives and Instructors in June of this year in Bulgaria. Darina Georgieva, our Representative there, and her team worked very hard to organize this conference and we were very disappointed that it needed to be postponed. We are hoping that it can be re-scheduled for some time next year. If that happens, you are all most welcome to attend. We will post information on social media as well as contact all of our Representatives when more information is available.
PET Celebrates 40 Years in Japan
The Japanese Representative, JIPET, will hold their 40th anniversary celebration of the PET course in Tokyo in October. They have produced a beautiful 25-page booklet that describes what they have achieved since 1980. Dr. Gordon and I were fortunate to be able to celebrate some of their
anniversaries with them which were wonderful experiences.
People Who Were Raised by PET Parents
By now, there are many people who are now adults or teenagers who were raised by PET parents. We decided to contact some of them and learn about the impact on them of being brought up this way. Sheryl Wilde, one of our team members, interviewed over 40 people around the world and heard some beautiful stories of what having this experience meant to them and how they are raising their own children with PET. We posted many of these interviews as blogs on our website.
On a Personal Note
This year marks the 53rd anniversary of my work with Gordon Training International. Together with our daughter, Michelle (celebrating her 30th anniversary), we continue to be passionately committed and motivated to continue to spread the brilliant model that Dr. Gordon created in 1962. And I am grateful to each of you for your part in realizing that goal.
Linda Adams
