This past year has brought a number of changes to the Religious Research Association, changes that add up at this time of the year as positive.

One of the clearest evidences of change is to be found in the New York Office. After the establishment of a new part-time person in the office and a number of streamlining procedures last year, we had settled down to what we had hoped was a comfortable period of promotion and efficient handling of day-to-day affairs. Then this summer we were quite suddenly left without personnel in the office. But thanks once again to our very able committee, we were able to install a new person in the office, who is living up to all our hopes. My thanks go to Ed Rauff and Connie Jacquet for spearheading this process.

Promotion through the office and through the Review has resulted in an increase of about 13% in membership during the year. Reports show that most of the new members come from settings within the religious institution -- denominational staff, executives, pastors, and the like -- rather than from academe. This seems to me to represent the kind of creative mix we have been discussing, where research and practice may be joined. It is up to us to see to it that the mix becomes a way of grounding and upgrading both sides of that equation, rather than allowing each to dilute the other. If I were to point to any overarching task of the Association during the next few years, it would be that.

The Review, as reports will show, is flourishing under the able guidance of Jim Davidson. He has provided us with solid articles that are also useful to people in many fields. He has aggressively marketed the Review, providing his own kind of development activity along with that of the Development Committee. He now is moving the Review toward quarterly publication, and we are happy to have in hand the 20th Anniversary Index -- a valuable tool indeed. Jim is coming near the end of his term, and we will be faced with the difficult task of replacing him.

Our relations with other organizations in the field seem to be on an even keel. the increase in "church-type" members in the RRA, without the loss of its academic component, reinforces our unique function of providing a bridge between the two sources of religious research, a function respected by, but not duplicated by, the other associations.

As we are witness to at this time, our program has been ably provided by Hart Nelsen this year, and we look forward to equally able direction of the program by Jim Davis next year.

The Board of directors, current and incoming, is filled with active and able people. I am happy to turn the presidency over to Dean Hoge, confident that the Association will be in good hands.

[Under the signature of:]

Barbara Hargrove