iv President’s Report 2002 By now, many of you will have heard that Colleen Brown died peacefully in her sleep the night of Saturday June 29. Colleen was a long-time member of the journal board and received the Journal Award for Distinguished Service to Family Therapy in 1997 for her work with her own indige- nous community and for her generosity in contributing to the family therapy community through her presentations and articles and involvement in our conferences. I want to begin by saying how much Colleen will be missed and how much we have valued her contribution over the years. Having begun my report with this sad news, let me now report on developments across the past year. Generally it has been a year of consolidation and some change for the journal and the journal board. The journal office now has a new address in Blackheath — the move across state was handled with customary efficiency and grace by our Editors, Maureen and Hugh Crago. This was the first of my two-year term as President of the Board, and similarly for Catherine Sanders as Vice-President. The Board has created a new Vice-President position, and under this arrangement the Vice-President moves to the President position as a way of ensuring both continuity and planned presidential transition. Though both Catherine and I were new to the Executive Committee this year, we were very lucky to have the experience of Stephen Pinkus as Treasurer and Banu Moloney as Secretary who, along with the Editors and Jeff Young as Immediate Past President, smoothed the way for us. Stephen and Banu have now just finished their terms, and have handed the baton on to Ann Stark (Tas) and Linda MacKay (NSW), who were elected as the new Secretary and Treasurer respectively at our recent AGM. The journal board traditionally has its main meetings at the same time as the family therapy conference, and this year in Hobart we tackled journal business and broader questions of future direction with considerable energy. In terms of pri- ority for working groups in the next year, Barbara Fraser (Vic) and Banu Moloney (Vic) will be especially considering the potential for journal promotional activities; I have agreed to lead a small group working on increasing the presence of indigenous issues, and we will be asking for guidance in this work from Barb Wingard (SA), who is an indigenous member of the board, as well as other indigenous colleagues. The journal board would also like to sponsor a discus- sion across the next year between State Associations and the journal about the national life of family therapy in Australia. We began this discussion with an ad hoc meeting in Hobart to which we invited State Presidents and State Association representatives on the journal board and the journal execu- tive. We believe the discussion is important and very timely, given the changing nature of our environment with the consolidation of PACFA, the refinement of the role of our family therapy conferences in recent years, and the discus- sions within the journal board about changing our structure to meet more fully the current demands of leading the journal and its activities. Let me congratulate the organising group of the Hobart conference and the Tasmanian Family Therapy Association for the terrific conference they hosted this year. They tailored their planning toward a more intimate and interactive event, and produced a conference that was marked by the easy involvement of participants in workshops, paper presenta- tions and plenaries. South Australia will be hosting the conference in October 2003, and Queensland has offered to host the 2004 conference. To begin the long list of who I would like to thank for the past year’s work, let me acknowledge once again our Editors, Maureen and Hugh Crago, for their energy, imagination, commitment and sheer hard work on our behalf. I will also thank Bruce Hart (Vic) who has resigned as Associate Editor, especially for the legacy he leaves us of his creation of the journal website. Glenn Larner (NSW) continues with his sterling work as Associate Editor, and is now joined by Helen Pavlin (NT) as our second Associate Editor. The journal itself is supported by a wide range of other colleagues across Australia and Aotearoa/New Zealand, and I would like to thank them all. Though we have farewelled Stephen Pinkus and Banu Moloney as Executive members, they both remain on the Board, so we will continue to have their wisdom and support. And finally, I would like to farewell Jeff Young, who has finished his term this year as Immediate Past President. The journal board and the journal itself are truly in debt to Jeff for his years of service as a board member, and his ener- getic and involving presidency. Having had the great pleasure of announcing the recipi- ent of this year’s Journal Award for Distinguished Service to Family Therapy in Hobart, I will record here that the com- mittee unanimously made this award to David Epston from New Zealand, for his central contribution to the develop- ment of narrative theory and practices, for the international significance of his publications and presentations, and the enrichment his work has offered to family therapy in Aotearoa/New Zealand and Australia. Though unable to accept the award in person, David sent his acceptance message which was read out in Hobart (see page 221). I look forward to working with the Editors, Executive and fellow board members in the coming year, and to the journal’s involvement in the wider events of the family therapy community. Carmel Flaskas, President The Australian and New Zealand Journal of Family Therapy, Inc.