We had strong attendance this year in Orlando-somewhere around 50 people packed the room as Chair-Elect Christi McGeorge led a mentoring-themed activity in which we divided up as mentors or mentees and met people we'd never talked to before. We hope to follow up at next year's meeting with a speed-mentoring activity. You won't want to miss it!.

The big news in the Family Therapy Section this year was the selection of Karen Wampler and Richard Wampler (both at Michigan State University) as co-recipients of the first Kathleen Briggs Mentoring Award. The award was established to honor the memory of Kathleen Briggs, whose career was so clearly focused on the goal of building the next generation of family therapy scholars and practitioners through personal mentoring relationships. After years of planning, we were delighted to be able to present this award at an NCFR plenary session.

Erika Lynn Grafsky won the 2011 Outstanding Student Paper Award for "The Disclosure to Family Experience of Queer Youth," and Markie L.C. Blumer won the Outstanding New Professional Paper Award for "Exploring Intergenerational Clinical Mentoring" with co-authors Mary Sue Green, Ashley M. Barrera, and Desiree Compton.

Jessica N. Fish won the 2011 Outstanding Student Poster Award for "The Role of Attachment and Differentiation in Extradyadic Experiences" with co-authors Thomas Pavkov, Joseph Wetchler, and Jerry Bercik. Rashmi Gangamma won the Outstanding New Professional Poster Award for "Relational Ethics, Differentiation & Relationship Satisfaction in Couples," with co-authors Suzanne Bartle-Haring, Michael Knerr, and Jennifer Collins.

For several years we have talked about the fact that our section is one of the few that does not sponsor at least one focus group. At this year's business meeting, Karen Wampler proposed a focus group on mentoring. The idea was extremely popular. We passed a sign-up sheet to get the minimum of 15 charter members for the application, and it came back with 33 names. We will now submit the application through the NCFR Board. We hope to be ready to reserve a room for the group to meet at the 2012 Conference in Phoenix. The final challenge is that we need to have a strong showing of participants when the Mentoring Focus Group meets. Please help to spread the word!

You should receive several reminders to send in proposals for the 2012 Conference, chaired by FT Section member Leigh Leslie. The theme, "Families and Health," highlights an emerging theme in family work of all kinds. After about 30 years of intense activity in the area of Medical Family Therapy and Collaborative Healthcare, we hope to show our members' involvement in this critical effort by sponsoring many health-related posters, papers, symposia, and workshops. We especially like to see our members select  FT as the section to which their proposals are sent-that way we get more recognition on the program.

On Ground Hog Day 2011, a new NCFR website was unveiled. It offers many new ways in which Sections can support their members. Among the most important is the new ability for members to access current conference presentations as well as those from past years (both recordings and presentation slides). I encourage you to go to the site and search for your favorite clinical and scholarly interests-see what has been happening!