Society for the Preservation of Natural History Collections March 2022 - 4

President Report - Paul Mayer
I am writing this report after having
purchased my plane ticket to
Edinburgh, Scotland, and as the
deadline passes for abstract submission
to 37th annual meeting of
SPNHC. I am very much looking
forward to seeing everyone this
year in person after having virtual
meetings for the last two years.
This year's meeting is hosted by
National Museums of Scotland
and the Royal Botanic Garden
Edinburgh, and is a joint meeting with international partner
Biodiversity Heritage Library (BHL) and national partner
Natural Sciences Collections Association (NatSCA). We,
of course, all want a safe meeting and the Local Organizing
Committee (LOC) will follow the latest government guidance
with respect to conferences and will post helpful information
on COVID-19 (including information on testing) on the meeting's
website https://spnhc2022.com/. The meeting will also
have virtual interactive elements to the symposia for those
who are unable to travel.
The 2022 SPNHC election results have just been tabulated. I
am pleased to welcome
* President-elect Greg Watkins-Colwell (Yale University)
*
Secretary Tiffany Adrian (University of Iowa)
* Member-at-Large Irene Finkelde (University of Melbourne)
*
Member-at-Large Jennifer Trimble (Harvard University)
Thank you to Jean-Marc Gagnon and Bethany Palumbo for
all of their work on running a smooth and successful election.
At the end of this year's conference, Julian Carter will assume
the role of President and I will take over the role of Past
President from Barbara Thiers.
We held a virtual Council meeting at the end of January. The
main points of discussion were a long overdue survey. The
survey will be developed by our Long Range Planning Committee
chaired by Julian Carter, however we are looking for
input for this survey from other interested committees. We
also had a brainstorming session on how to help pay for the
cost of membership for people who cannot afford it. Look
for an announcement on this at the Annual Business Meeting
later this year. We also had a discussion on a related issue
about SPNHC membership fees and how to make it easier to
pay for SPNHC memberships outside of the USA. There was
further discussion about changing the section of the bylaws
dealing with late fees. This section is mostly concerned
with the cost of mailing out newsletters which are no longer
4 * SPNHC Connection
delivered by mail, but are instead available on the SPNHC
website. Finally, we discussed ways to have more interactions
between leaders of SPNHC committees to help communication
between committees and prevent any duplication of efforts.
Look for a committee leadership luncheon at Edinburgh
this year. The virtual Council meeting was recorded and will
be made available on the SPNHC YouTube channel.
If you have ever wondered what all the SPNHC committees
do or are interested in joining one, please check out
the Emerging Professionals Committee blog, Cracking the
Collections (https://crackingthecollections.wordpress.com)
for posts by EPC Co-chairs Kevin Krajcir and Jessie Nakano,
highlighting the various SPNHC committees. The post is
directed at emerging professionals with the goal of generating
more interest in participating in committees, but I suspect
everyone may learn something new about SPNHC committees.
As
mentioned in the last SPNHC Connection newsletter, the
Inclusion, Diversity, Equity and Access (IDEA) Committee
drafted an Inclusion Statement. This inclusion statement is
now live on the SPNHC website at https://spnhc.org/spnhcinclusion-statement/.
The IDEA Committee is also working
with the LOC in Edinburgh to review their Accessibility and
Inclusivity Statement and the Conference Code of Conduct.
The Education Committee is planning on kicking off the year
with meetings to share on-going initiatives and brainstorm
ideas for 2022 and beyond. We encourage anyone interested
to join in these brainstorming sessions to help shape the future
of SPNHC education initiatives, the Education Committee,
and the SPNHC Natural History Education Demo-Camp.
Participation is open to all members, and potentially interested
participants are welcome. Fill out their online form for
more information https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQ
LSdbuigdupi3I9qkH6r6qP22dH0m-7wjQX_GyvFQX5mTksTBTg/viewform.
In
Europe, Jutta Buschbom has been busy representing
SPNHC. She gave an invited presentation at the Consortium
of European Taxonomic Facilities (CETAF) board meeting.
This has generated some cooperation between our organizations,
especially between the Best Practice and Citation Committees,
which has resulted in a copyright workshop that will
be held at this year's meeting. Jutta has also been representing
SPNHC and our Biodiversity Crisis Response Committee
at the Convention on Biological Diversity meetings, the
twenty-fourth meeting of the Subsidiary Body on Scientific,
Technical and Technological Advice (SBSTTA-24), the third
meeting of the Subsidiary Body on Implementation (SBI-03)
and the third meeting of the Open-ended Working Group on
the Post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework (WG2020-03).

https://crackingthecollections.wordpress.com/2021/12/26/spnhc-committee-highlights-part-1/ https://spnhc2022.com/ https://spnhc.org/spnhc-inclusion-statement/ https://spnhc.org/spnhc-inclusion-statement/ https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdbuigdupi3I9qkH6r6qP22dH0m-7wjQX_GyvFQX5mTksTBTg/viewform https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdbuigdupi3I9qkH6r6qP22dH0m-7wjQX_GyvFQX5mTksTBTg/viewform https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdbuigdupi3I9qkH6r6qP22dH0m-7wjQX_GyvFQX5mTksTBTg/viewform

Society for the Preservation of Natural History Collections March 2022

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