Welcome to the home of the Alliance for Licensing Massage Therapists!     We are a totally-not-for-profit, grassroots group of Minnesota Massage Therapists, teachers, students, clients and MN citizens working toward reasonable regulations for the practice of Massage Therapy in MN. We're glad you're here!


We add New pages and info as it becomes available- Listed here from newest to not so new.

11Aug2010

We are gearing up for the 2011-2012 legislative session and we need your help. We have been getting a lot of questions asking what individuals can do to help - the biggest thing you can do is get involved. We always have things that we could use help with in the ALMT, but with the November elections right around the corner, candidates really need your help. Every state lawmaker seat is up for election this November, and they remember the folks who help them. So volunteer for a candidate you like - stuff envelopes for an hour or take part of a Saturday Morning and deliver yard signs. It will bring you more clout than you know! If you'd like to help with projects in the Alliance, email us and let us know - we would love your help! The other big thing we need is even more supporters. Talk to your colleagues. Talk to your clients. Talk to health care professionals you work with, and have them contact us. The more names we have in our supporter list, the more likely our bill will finally pass!

Right now we are planning our next moves, and one of those plans include our annual online survey. We are constructing survey and hope to have it ready very soon. Our past two annual surveys have gotten tremendous response rates and the information we have gotten has been priceless. Check back and fill out the survey when it opens! We'll post a link to it on this site as soon as it is available.


OCAP Office Re-Opens
The Office of Unlicensed Complementary and Alternative Practices has been re-opened as of July 1st. Click HERE for more information.


19Mar2010
We made HUGE progress this year making it through FOUR committees in the MN House, and doing by the House Deadline. This was the first time we ever made it out of any House committees, much less four House Committees. And it is all due to the tireless efforts of supporters who are interested in protecting MN's Massage Therapy clients and trying to raise the bar for this profession that we love.
  
Unfortunately, the legislative session came to an early close for clients of Massage Therapists this year. After making gigantic strides and getting further into the process than in any previous attempt, our bill, House File 1503 / Senate File 1233, which would have enacted an enforceable means of protecting the clients of the likely 5100 Massage Therapists was held up by a procedural issue in a Senate committee hearing on Wednesday (3/17).  We had the votes we needed to be able to pass out of this unprecedented 5th committee hearing, but because several Senators had left for the evening and were no longer in the Committee room, the Chair of the Committee would not allow the bill to be taken off the table. The bill  had been "laid over" on Monday (3/15) after it became clear there were several housekeeping items that needed to be cleaned up in the language. (A section had been taken out at the request of some of the House members, and while that section had been removed, several references to that section remained in the text that was heard on Monday-3/15.) And even more unfortunately the Senate's Committee deadline was only two days away, and with two other Senate committees to pass through in as many days, there was no wiggle room or margin for error. So not being able to come off the table means our bill that had come so far and had so much promise died on the vine.
It is important to understand, all the work of hundreds of supporters making phone calls and sending emails and meeting with legislators in their offices is not lost. While we will have to start with a fresh bill in the next attempt, we now have invaluable information about what specific key legislators are looking for in a bill like this. And more importantly, the fact that so many people called and emailed and expressed support for this common sense legislation will not soon be forgotten by any of the legislators our supporters worked so hard to contact. Several Senator's assistants told us they had received more than 150 calls in support, and that support contacts outnumbered opposition contacts by a ratio of 2:1-THAT IS GIGANTIC! (Particularly when you consider it is far easier to get people to call to oppose a given piece of legislation than it is to get people call in support of legislation.) It is because of our supporters that we made it as far into the process as we did this year, and that progress is something these legislators will not forget. Our supporters are amazing.

Next Steps
While we will definitely build on the foundation laid by this amazingly successful year, we are already making plans for our next run. In next few weeks we will conduct a survey on how we could do a better job of getting the word out to the profession as well as some other topics that will help us get to mount what will undoubtedly be THE year for this bill to finally pass. Registered supporters of the ALMT will get first notice of the survey and news of the interim and the actions we are taking to ensure a victory to protect our clients. 

Thank You to all those who worked so hard to protect the clients of MN Massage Therapists, and who helped raise the bar for this profession that we love!


Older News

2009 Legislative Survey Completed - The ALMT conducted an online survey of MN Massage Therapists and Massage Therapy students who plan to begin practicing in MN before 01Aug2011. The results were overwhelmingly in favor of the state passing a credential that will make it easier to protect our potential clients by giving them a standard credential to look for when choosing a therapist. Thank you to all those who took the time to fill out the survey and for everything you do for our profession everyday!


Register with the Alliance online!

Go to the Forms, Forms, Forms tab for more information. (Please note if you have already mailed in a paper form, you do not need to register online.) Registering is free and takes only a minute. Or for more information about why registering is so important and how it will be our ultimate key to make this the final push to victory, check our Key to Our Success page.

PLEASE NOTE:
We have a NEW mailing address where any written correspondence can be sent:

Alliance for Licensing Massage Therapists (ALMT)
PO Box 44892
Eden Prairie, MN 55344


Or for electronic correspondence:

Email the Alliance Volunteer Coordinator

For the Alliance Chair, Jeremy Miller


Special Note: If you notice any typos or links that do not open, please take a second and zap the Alliance Chair an email and let him know exactly where on the site you saw the problem. This website is maintained by a Massage Therapist, not a webmaster. (In other words if you have a problem in your Infraspinatus I can help you; If however you have a problem with a URL hyperlinking, or a PHP that doesn't interact with your CSS, I have to wait for the experts at the website hosting service to get back to to me!) So thanks for your patience and and for helping us to get all the bugs out of our site.

Site updated: 11Aug2010

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