Dear Colleagues,

Things are humming along well at SFPRG. Our educational program has been successful this year. The 23rd International Conference on Control Mastery Theory was a lot of fun and attendant reviews of courses and teachers were very positive. The New Directions in Control Mastery Theory course has been warmly received by the attendees and I have had a particularly enjoyable time sitting in on almost all of the sessions. The Clinic has taken its new class of excellent interns after a very competitive application process. The interns are very busy with full caseloads.

One of the important questions that we, as a Board, have had to answer is where will SFPRG be housed when our current lease with the Presidio ends in September, 2012. At our strategic planning meeting in February, 2009, the Board highlighted this issue as a central question for several reasons. 1) The most important task our group has (in addition to teaching, doing research, and providing low cost therapy to the community) is to be financially viable. Given the 8% increase in our yearly rent determined by our lease, we have to bring in enough money to meet our obligations that include not just paying rent but paying our staff and funding the rest of our program. 2) The second advantage of finding a suitable, long-term site for SFPRG would be to solidify our identity as an organization. It would be wonderful if we could find a site that would be stable over a very long time that was either owned by our organization or by an owner friendly to SFPRG who would protect SFPRG and not threaten our financial security by raising rents drastically over time. Read On

The Society for Psychotherapy Research is hosting its 41st International Meeting from June 23 to June 27, 2010 at the beautiful Asilomar events center on the coast south of Monterey.

George Silberschatz, SFPRG longtime member and contributor of numerous writings on CMT and other subjects, also faculty at UCSF, is President of the North America Chapter of SPR. He will be hosting the opening ceremony on Wednesday June 23rd with a Presidential address.

George, Marshall Bush and John Curtis will be presenting on the research they are conducting at SFPRG and invite you to come along. The lineup and offerings are exciting and thought provoking. Something for everyone! To find out more click the link below.

Hello all and happy spring! As the flowers and trees blossom we hope you also are finding renewal in yourselves and practices after a stressful downturn in the economy.

The membership committee is continuing to take renewals as well as first time memberships. Please, don't miss out on the benefits provided by membership in SFPRG and know we are grateful for your support.

We need your help publicizing SFPRG classes and activities. If you belong to a professional or academic organization with a list serve or other means of communicating with its membership, and have the ability to forward emails and mailings, please contact Jack Maslow at: maslowj@comcast.net.

+ Rob Petitpas is sending out a request for a pc computer you may like to donate (tax-deductible) to SFPRG. It need it to be less than 8 years old. This will be a great help to the office. Email Rob at sfprg@sfprg.org or call 415-561-6771.

The Presidio has been a very attractive home for SFPRG and our member tenants since moving in seven years ago. It is a beautiful site that was particularly desired by Joe Weiss. Jessica Broitman did a wonderful job finding the site, first at 9 Funston and then adding the next door neighbor at 10 Funston. She negotiated a lease and arranged for devoted SFPRG members and supporters to rent offices in the buildings, paying rent that covered their own offices as well as Clinic space, conference rooms, and administrative office space. The tenants are universally happy with the beauty of the Presidio, the warm, homey feel, and until recently, the easy, free parking.

The problems with the Presidio rental arrangement have always included the liabilities set out in the lease for repairs to the building, special restrictions on making changes in the buildings, obligations to carry certain types of insurance, and the increasing rent (8% per year) imposed in the last lease. We have tried to renegotiate a reduced rent in the last year following the economic downturn, and are awaiting a meeting with the Presidio Trust.

We have several options available to us:

1) We could continue to stay at the Presidio (which would be the easiest thing to do), assuming we could negotiate a long-term lease that SFPRG and our tenants could afford.

2) We could move to another building to rent that was more financially consistent with our resources and hopefully would be just as attractive, accessible, and desirable.

3) We could buy a building that we could move to permanently so we could control our future and avoid potential devastating rent increases. If we bought a building, we could either have SFPRG buy the building directly if we could raise enough money in a capital campaign, or we could set up a consortium of "Friends of SFPRG" who could own the building as an investment, rent to SFPRG, but at less than market rates, again with the idea to protect SFPRG financially.

We have a small group of people including Marcia Herman, Rob Petitpas, and myself who are meeting with a commercial real estate agent and starting to look at buildings of comparable space to assess costs of buying or renting. When we get some more information about numbers, we will meet with the tenants at 9 and 10 Funston and discuss options and what everyone wants to do. It is a very exciting time and we would love input and help from all interested people.

Have a good month. We will talk again in May.

Steve Foreman