HTAC: the beginning…
(Content taken from The Nexus: Where are Our Healers, by Karen Stewart; Fall 2008, pp. 2,4)
Karen Stewart, co-founder of HTAC, asked herself, after what she recalls as her exhilarating Level 1 weekend in April 1997, who were the students who had started down the path of studying energy work and lived in her neighbourhood of Mississauga, Ontario? There were a few, including Susanna Bany and Cindy Graham who eventually became her first mentors; but she knew there had to be more. Healing Touch Canada was in its seventh year of teaching students all across the country.
She and her husband planned to RV extensively in their retirement and she wanted to be able to contact HTers in every province to either get a treatment, attend a practice group or just check in with like-minded people. In 2002, as the Board of the Canadian Healing Touch Foundation considered creating a Healing Touch membership organization in Canada, that quest shaped a part of their thinking.
The Board members were Alexandra Jonsson, Susanna Bany, Sandra Pickrell-Baker, Janet Given, Ileana McBain and Karen Stewart. Their inspiration came from two sources. Most of them were Charter Members of Healing Touch International, the membership organization founded by Janet Mentgen. Karen Stewart was also a member of the Therapeutic Touch Association of Ontario and saw, firsthand, the strength of their membership numbers.
Initially, a charter membership base was established through the Foundation: however, the Board decided to separate those two roles and all Canadian charter memberships were transferred to the Healing Touch Association of Canada Inc. when it was founded on October 3, 2002. Janet Mentgen was our first ‘Angelic’ member.