All, Just a reminder/update of the information I sent out at the end of April regarding the upcoming meeting. Please read through the whole thing as there is important information here that may affect you! 1) We now have 3 symposia: a. "Natural History Discoveries and their Impact on Collecting and Collections Data" - organizer: Sydney Brannoch ([log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>) b. "Tales from the Field: Volume 2" - organizers: Derek A. Woller ([log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>) and Michael L. Ferro ([log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>) c. "The availability and accessibility of fluid-preserved insect samples in North American collections." - organizer: Robert Kula ([log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>) I believe the first and last symposia are essentially full, but if you think you have a talk that might suit being in any of the symposia, I suggest reaching out to the symposium organizers...and soon. They may be able to squeeze in an extra speaker but they will need to negotiate with me regarding the length of their session. Their deadline to have fully fleshed out symposia talks, speakers and abstracts to me is technically June 30, but I'm hoping to receive them sooner rather than later. You probably saw that Derek and Mike still have a few more slots in the Tales from the Field symposium so please contact them if you are interested. If they follow the same format, this can be anything from a 12 minute talk down to 3-5 minute mini-talk. 2) Unfortunately, at the moment, I have only had 2 other submissions (1 talk and 1 poster) with a couple of other "intent" emails. Remember that the deadline to submit talks to the program is June 30 (only 3 weeks away!!!). I will close the program at that point so I can put it together and post it for viewing online by the end of the first week in July. 3) I would also like to draw your attention to a slight change from my initial message. This year, to encourage people to pay earlier so we have a better idea of how much money we have to spend to put on the meeting, we are introducing a 3 phase registration process. Currently, early bird registration is underway though we haven't had a huge number of people register yet. a. We are going to close Early Bird registration ($80 for regular and $40 for students) earlier than usual on August 31. b. Online registration will remain open through the meeting, but the price jumps to $120 for regular and $60 for students after the Early Bird deadline up until the meeting (September 1 - November 2). c. Onsite registration is double the Early Bird ($160 for regular and $80 for students). I apologize for the confusion my initial email may have caused, but in recent years we have simply had too many people wait until the last minute to pay despite the fact that we must provide numbers of seats for the lecture room and the banquet well in advance and pay large deposits. Changes at the last minute come at great expense to ECN. This is the only way we can think of to incentivize early registration so we have more reliable numbers. I will send reminders a couple of weeks before each of the deadlines. Thanks for your understanding as we continue to strive to bring you a quality program and annual meeting. We continue to work behind the scenes on other activities that support our membership, promote collections, advocate on behalf of collections-based staff, and provide for a more financially secure future for ECN. It has been my honor to serve ECN, first as your first Vice President and then as your President from 2015-2017. I look forward to a very positive future for the Network as I slip into retirement (and can actually come and enjoy the meeting and all the talks myself!!!). Cheers, Floyd --------------------------------------------------------- Floyd W. Shockley, Ph.D., F.R.E.S. Collections Manager Department of Entomology National Museum of Natural History Smithsonian Institution P.O. Box 37012, MRC 165 Washington, DC 20013-7012 Tel (office): 202-633-0982 Fax (office): 202-786-2894 Email: [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]> Staff Website: http://entomology.si.edu/StaffPages/ShockleyF.html --------------------------------------------------------------------- Hi everyone, Thank you for your patience as we plan the ECN/SysEB Collections Management Workshop and the 2017 Annual Meeting, as well as conducting the election for the incoming officers for 2018-2019 and getting our new Treasurer installed all in parallel. We are also wrapping up new MOUs with iDigBio and ISBER and establishing an investment account to build our financial holdings for future use. Needless to say, it's been a busy Spring and that doesn't even take into account that all of us also have full-time day jobs. Based on the results of the survey and space availability, this year's ECN meeting will return to a 1.5 day format (Saturday, Nov. 4 and Sunday, Nov. 5) in Denver, Colorado! The meeting and banquet will both be at the Denver Convention Center. We are also returning registration to pre-ICE amounts. Early-bird registration is $80 for regular members and $40 for student members. Onsite registration will be $160 for regular members and $80 for student members so we strongly encourage members to register early rather than onsite as it helps us with planning for seating, catering, etc. Online registration for the meeting will open on May 1 and will close on October 31. For those interested, we are also planning a Behind-the-Scenes tour for Sunday afternoon to visit the Denver Museum of Science & Nature. If interested, please indicate that when you register (there should be a checkbox). We are asking those interested in this tour option to pay an additional $5 to help defray costs for the bus and to reserve a spot on it. If it turns out that there is insufficient interest, we reserve the right to cancel the tour and will refund the $5 to all who have paid it. Because we are still without a Program Chair for this year's meeting, Floyd will be handling those arrangements again (once more unto the breach, dear friends). At the moment, we have two symposia that have been proposed (below) with room for one additional 2-hour symposium block. Please contact the organizers below if you'd like to give a talk in their symposium or contact Floyd ([log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>) if you'd like to organize a symposium. "Natural History Discoveries and their Impact on Collecting and Collections Data" - organizer: Sydney Brannoch ([log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>) "Tales from the Field: Volume 2" - organizers: Derek A. Woller ([log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>) and Michael L. Ferro ([log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>) In addition to the 3 member symposia, we are also planning to have 3 submitted talk sessions and a poster session. Posters should be put up no later than the mixer so that presenters can be available during the mixer. If you would like to give a talk or present a poster at the meeting this year, please email Floyd ([log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>) with a title, brief abstract, and list of authors by July 1. Symposium organizers-your completed list of speakers, titles, and abstracts should be sent to Floyd as soon as possible but no later than July 1. We've heard your concerns about the program details being made public too late for people to decide if they are going to attend. In an attempt to address those concerns, the draft program will be made viewable in PDF format on the ECN website beginning mid-May and will be updated biweekly throughout the talk/poster submission period. The final draft of the program will be available in PDF format by July 7, again on the ECN website. Talks should be prepared using MS PowerPoint (or similar app) and are generally 12-15 minutes in length, including time for questions. Posters should follow ESA size guidelines (46" x 46" max dimensions). Please continue checking the ECN website (http://ecnweb.org/) periodically for the most up to date information. Any further major announcements will come through the email distribution list and via our social media platforms: Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/groups/148208995368404/) and Twitter (@EntCollNtwrk). Thanks so much and we look forward to seeing you all in November! Floyd, Katrina, Christy, & Patrick 2016-2017 ECN Officers