by Sylvanna Vargas and Elizabeth Kramer

Thank you to all who participated in our anonymous survey and the luncheon discussion groups during the 2013 annual meeting. We were especially gratified to receive so many responses from long-term members. You gave us lots of good feedback, some of which will take further deliberation by the Board, or more money than we currently have, but we already have begun to do some of the things you suggested.

You told us you like the format of the meeting, so basically we will stick with it. We will do our best to facilitate networking and dialogue among participants.

We will schedule more time for clinical supervision of trainees during the meeting. In addition, a small committee headed by Sadeq Rahimi is investigating both the work involved and the expense of updating our website. In addition to making it more attractive, we hope to offer web-based teaching and case consultation, as well as possibly operate a clearinghouse.

The membership committee has been charged with developing a first class brochure aimed at both recruiting and retaining members. The brochure will include information about the Spiegel and Hughes awards. As part of the recruitment effort, the brochure will be sent to all of the academic psychiatry programs in North America and to all of the residency programs on the AADPRT list as well as to the SAMHSA minority lists.

We now have a regular quarterly newsletter, edited by Shannon Suo, which is emailed to all members and available at our website. This is a good way to keep in touch with everyone. Perhaps someday we will have a blog.

We also have a recently formed research committee, headed by Albert Yeung. We will ask them to organize a research workshop for new investigators during the 2014 meeting, and we will try to have a few clinically focused workshops. We also will have a poster session next year.

Many of you wanted us to partner with other organizations. This year we will have participation by Survivors of Torture International, a San Diego-based organization on whose board Jim Jaranson sits. Many of you expressed interest in having a meeting in Boston, and we are exploring the feasibility of doing that in 2015, quite possibly in concert with the Society of Psychological Anthropologists.

These are just a few of the things that are happening. Please stay tuned for further developments.