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Events/Sporting events
Scroll down to the end of the page for a listing of current future events. Please contact our events coordinator, Jason Latona Directly for any, and more, information on the events either by email or phone (954-683-1142)
Broward FSMTA Special Events
Sunday, February 27 2011
Tour de Broward at Miramar Regional Park from 8-1 pm
Sunday, March 6th 2011
MS Walk at Hugh Taylor Park
Sunday, April 3rd 2011,
MS Walk in Weston
Saturday and Sunday, May 14-15th 2011,
MS Breakaway to the Keys
September 2010
Saturday, September 4th, 2010 Tradewinds Park in Coconut Creek 7 to 9 am Ft Lauderdale Road Runners Club - 5k run
This is a paid event - FSMTA therapists will be charging $1/min with a 10 minute minimum.The entry fee for each therapist is a gift certificate for a 1 hour massage to be donated toward a participant in the race, to be awarded by the sponsor.
Those interested, please contact Jason Latona: by email or phone (954-683-1142)
April Events
Saturday April 24, 2010
Time: 7 to 10:30
Charity: 4 Kids of South Florida
www.4kidsofsfl.org
Location: Central Broward Regional Park 3700 NW 11th Place Lauderhill, FL 33311
Map: http://www.broward.org/parks/cbrpmap.htm
If you wish to participate, contact Felicia Jimenez at
christs-child@comcast.net
Broward Chapter LMT’s Shine at the 1st Annual Tour de Broward
On Sunday, February 14th 2010, five therapists braved the sunny and beautiful, yet cold and windy weather to help support the participants of the 1st Annual Tour de Broward by providing post-event massages.
Everyone there had one goal in mind, to help raise money to help expand the Joe DiMaggio’s Children’s Hospital into a four-story freestanding children’s hospital. There were around 600 individuals who either participated in a 5K run/walk, a 3K family fun walk, a spin-a-thon, or the 50K or 100K bike ride.
Stacie Ackerman, Pauline Haughton, Hansel Outler, and Jason Latona started at 7 am, with the relief crew consisting of Katalin Sallai arriving at 9 am. Everyone worked tirelessly until noon, all the while proudly representing the FSMTA, the massage profession, as well as promoting their own massage practice.
Lisa King, Community Volunteer Coordinator for the Memorial Healthcare System stated, “Your team of massage therapists was greatly appreciated. They worked nonstop and they had the first stop all the participants visited after their runs and rides. Your team made all the difference! A HUGE Thank You to each and every person who volunteered their time!”
Great job everyone! Thank you once again for all your help.
Tour de Broward: at the start of the morning! L-R Stacie Ackerman, Pauline Haughton, Jason Latona, and Hansel Outler. (Not Pictured: Katalin Sallai)
If you would like to participate, or know of an event, or have an event, please contact our Events/Sports Chairperson Jason Latona
Jason P. Latona, MS, LMT, CPT, CKTP
Sports Massage Chairman
FSMTA, Broward Chapter
H: 954-974-0020
latona_j@bellsouth.net
Events & Sports Massage Webpage
By Jason Latona, MS, LMT, CPT, CKTP
Volunteering is the practice of individuals working on behalf of others, or for a particular cause, without payment for their time and services. Volunteering is generally considered an unselfish activity intended to promote or improve human quality of life. People may also volunteer for their own skill development, to meet others, to make contacts for possible employment, to have fun, and a variety of other reasons that could be considered self serving.
Let me take this opportunity to introduce myself. My name is Jason Latona, and I am your Sports Massage & Events Chairman. I have been a licensed massage therapist, and member of the FSMTA since 1994. Some of you may already know me from my previous tenure serving as the Broward Chapter’s Newsletter Chairman. I’d like to take a moment to talk to everyone about community service, the massage profession, and how it can help us personally.
I volunteered for this position for several reasons, the first of which was noticing the lack of opportunities to promote the massage profession, myself, and my massage practice within the community. With these tough economic times, advertising opportunities are sometimes difficult and costly. I have talked to many licensed therapists, many of whom are not members of the FSMTA. They ask me; “What’s the advantage to being a member?” One of those advantages is the networking opportunities! I realize that many of us would love to get paid every time we massage someone, but there is an expression; “Sometimes you have to give a little, to get a lot!” When you volunteer your time and services at various community events, this is an opportunity for you to “sell” yourself, your business, and the massage profession. I’ll be honest with you, it can be extremely hard and demanding work, but at the same time, very rewarding knowing that through your gifts as a therapist, you are helping others. And if you were to get at least one new client as a result of your “volunteering", that’s even better, since that is one more person whom would have never known about you otherwise.
Another benefit of volunteering is skill development and self improvement! Being an active cyclist, I noticed a lack of knowledgeable therapists (or any therapists for that matter,) at several charity events that I’ve participated in throughout the county. When you work at an event with a large volume of “clients” and a limited time to work on them, you improve your skills to evaluate and treat them more quickly and accurately. You also learn how to adjust your current skills, along with any new techniques you’ve learned to the specific needs of the client, as well as gain more experience in how to budget your time, and even how to better market yourself.
Over the past few years, I have seen the therapist participation
within the chapter at various charity events fluctuate; ranging from
a small army of therapists taking on several hundred people, to
seeing just a small handful of therapists working on what seems like
a never ending mass of bodies. Many therapists don’t want to
“volunteer” for fear of finding themselves in the latter situation.
What helps to avoid this situation from occurring is when we have a
large base of therapists willing to “work” these events; you know
the adage, “The more, the merrier!” One thing I have
noticed throughout my massage career is that no one person responds
to the same modality in the same way. If what I’m doing is not
helping my client, then I have the ethical obligation to try to help
them find someone who can. Through networking, socializing and
seeing how other therapists work “in the field”, I have learned much
more about myself as a therapists, and formed a network of
therapists with whom I work with on a referral basis, do exchanges
with, or whom I just call friends!
Over the next several months, I hope to start building contacts throughout the county that will want to contact the FSMTA for licensed therapists to work at their events. With luck, we may be able to create opportunities for “paid” events. But in order to get to that point, we as a chapter have to pull together and create a need and demand for licensed massage therapists! We can’t do this by having the same therapists volunteer at every event, or else they will burn out. I call on you my fellow members of the Broward Chapter of the FSMTA to volunteer in at least two events a year. Perhaps you might be associated with a charity that could use the benefit of licensed massage therapists or would like to be an event captain, if so, let me know, so we can get the word out to the rest of the chapter. As events arise, they will be posted on the chapter’s webpage, along with the lead therapist to contact for more information.
Together, we as massage therapists can help improve our careers,
our profession, and our community, one client at a time!