Best wishes for the new year!

The 2022 delegates' meeting dealt in depth with the topic of "recruiting members". Since the complete outsourcing of professional training and its orientation as a purely professional association, the SMPV has changed considerably. Today, it represents the interests of employed and self-employed music teachers, for whom it is continuously expanding its range of services. The "Communication" working group was entrusted with the challenging task of finding a solution for how to publicize the SMPV's expanded range of services to music teachers of all ages. We are all the more pleased that we were able to gain 64 new members this year and that more and more students on the Master of Arts in Music Pedagogy course are recognizing the benefits of SMPV membership.

A lot of work awaits the association in the trade union sector, and it must strive to find solutions, e.g. to the problem of the lack of unemployment insurance cover in the event of a gradual decline in workloads, the fact that salaries for employed music teachers remain the same despite the growing number of duties, and the complete lack of unemployment insurance for the self-employed.

For our concert booking platform launched in November 2022 www.rent-a-musician.ch we have received many compliments, and thanks to the new platform some members have remembered that they could also revise their profile on the private lessons platform www.mein-musikunterricht. ch could be revised again. We are very pleased about that. But the growing range of services also means that the work of the Central Board is becoming more complex and time-consuming. In line with the overdue professionalization of the association, the Central Board was reconstituted at its December meeting: Two ZV members now form the operational part of the Central Board and take care of the diverse day-to-day business, i.e. together with the Central Secretary, all operational tasks of the association. The other Board members form the strategic part of the Board. They discuss the SMPV's strategy and intervene when operational business comes to a standstill. Together with the operational part, they make the decisions that are important for the association. We are confident that the new model will help us find committed new members of the Board of Directors who are happy to think along with us and contribute their good ideas, even if they do not have time for operational work and only want to attend a limited number of meetings.

In addition, a specialist department structure will be re-established in the association, as it already existed at the time of SMPV professional training. The newly created specialist groups will deal with issues such as quality management and specialist further training and will promote exchange between colleagues. The difficult coronavirus period, in which everyone was thrown back on their own, has shown us how incredibly important a professional network is, that we are stronger together and that peer-to-peer exchange is enriching and helps us move forward.

We look forward to meeting you at one of our events and exchanging ideas with you!

The Co-Presidents Annette Dannecker and Paola De Luca