I have just returned from the NCFR’s 74th Annual Conference in Phoenix. It was wonderful for me to spend a day with the President-for-a-Day Award winner, Amanda Williams, a doctoral student at Oklahoma State. Most importantly, I extend a special thank you to my own colleague Leigh Leslie, Program Chair. She and her Conference Program Committee planned and organized an excellent meeting that was stimulating and timely. Our many sessions around the theme “Families and Health” were important for numbers of reasons.

Each of us was reminded of the importance of our own health and the health of others around us. By the time that most of you are reading this column, we will be heading into a new year, but we want to continue to extend our best thoughts for the health and well-being of our friends and colleagues on the east coast most impacted by Hurricane Sandy. We wish them all the best as they and their communities work toward recovery in the ensuing weeks. For those of you who could not attend the conference, NCFR live-streamed all plenaries and special sessions this year. All NCFR members are able to view the content of these important presentations at http://www.ncfr.org/ncfr-2012/watch-and-listen.

The plenary speakers as well as the many paper, poster, round table and other sessions offered by you, the members, helped us understand the far-reaching role that health plays in our lives. Many of our speakers identified cutting-edge research to help us better understand health behaviors and health implications. We particularly saw the critical role that families play with our health. Further, our speakers challenged us to move our work into the programmatic and policy arenas. Finally, we were afforded the opportunity for multiple discussions about the fields of family science and health. As many of our work sites are becoming more multi-disciplinary, we are faced with trying to answer some remaining and some new questions regarding the state of family studies and the shared future of family science and public health. We began some of those conversations at this conference.

The conference also reflected the beginning work of several Board initiatives during 2012 . . .

The International Section worked closely with the Board International Subcommittee to recognize and specially welcome any international attendees. Thirty-one international attendees from 11 countries participated in the conference. In addition to a Welcoming International Visitors area in the Gathering Place, the International Section facilitated a mentoring/matching opportunity for each international attendee with a mentor-ing partner to help navigate the meeting. We hope to continue to expand the NCFR international linkages this next year.

Through our conversations with members, we know that you would like more training on policy education and advocacy. The Board Policy Subcommittee will be working with the Family Policy Section leadership to identify future activities.

Finally, the Board has been working to enhance and expand the role of our sections. Many sections partnered for the first time with each other to offer symposia highlighting a multidisciplinary approach to studying and understanding our health problems. We saw renewed energy in the sections as they discussed new conference session formats, fund raising, and other section activities. The Board will continue to work with all of our sections as we move several new initiatives forward.

NCFR remains a healthy organization. Our financial situation is quite stable, allowing us to undertake some new actions which you will be hearing more about over this next year. Our conference continues to attract many family scholars, professionals, and students, with the number of attendees consistently among the highest over the past decade. Last, our three premier journals continue to have an impact. The renewal rate is doing very well with the subscriptions increasing worldwide. The Board looks forward to expanding our work with you the members for another good year. We also thank the staff for the critical role they play in the success of our conference and the organization and for helping all of us do our work. We are excited to celebrate with all of you throughout this 2013 year—the National Council on Family Relations 75th anniversary year—culminating in a wonderful conference next November in San Antonio.