By Kathleen McCaffrey, Mark Ambrose, JHRTS Co-Presidents
The incoming board of JHRTS is enthusiastic about the opportunity to build upon our organization's strong reputation as we move into our seventh year. We plan on furthering our commitment to our membership by providing a community that enables networking, donates to charity, and fosters continuing education through a variety of programs.

Last year, JHRTS hosted an enormously successful holiday party, allowing us to donate over $20,000 to the Young Storytellers' Foundation, a charity that offers a means of self-expression to children at a time when public schools have dwindling opportunities for artistic and creative activities. Their program mentors kids through a six-week session in which they fully explore and express their creative voices by writing a story. At the end of the session, professional actors join students and mentors in a spirited staged reading of each of their scripts. JHRTS had a great, collaborative experience working with the Young Storytellers' Foundation, and we are looking forward to another charitable endeavor with the proceeds from this year's holiday party.

JHRTS' commitment to education continues to grow through our signature lecture series. We reached a milestone last year with our most successful lecture panel to date, the Drama Showrunners' Lecture. Held at the Beverly Hilton, the panel featured some of the top names in television today, including Shonda Rhimes (Grey's Anatomy), Tim Kring (Heroes), Ron Moore (Battlestar Galactica), and Millar & Gough (Smallville). The lively discussion was moderated by Joe Adalian, TV Editor for Variety, and brought record attendance and revenue for a JHRTS lecture. This year, we plan on expanding our lecture series by organizing at least four large lectures (including a reprisal of the showrunners' panel) and holding bi-monthly "Roundtables," a program we initiated last year whereby a group of 10-15 people have a chance to interact with a television producer, executive, or representative in a more intimate, relaxed setting than the larger lecture format.

Another one of our new initiatives this year is to increase our involvement in community service. We will be inviting our membership to Community Service Saturdays, and have already begun reaching out to several organizations to help effect these events.

We are grateful to HRTS for their continued support, and look forward to making this a banner year for JHRTS. If you would like to learn more about our organization please visit our website www.JHRTS.com. We welcome any feedback you may have.