Most of you will remember my 1Oct98 message regarding the formation of a new organization, the Freshwater Mollusk Conservation Society.
Plans are progressing nicely. A committee of us met at the Tennessee Aquarium in Chattanooga in early November to work on a constitution, bylaws, dues structure, application form, and numerous additional details. The FMCS should be incorporated as an independent, non-profit scientific and professional organization in January.
A highlight of the meeting for me was the creation of a FMCS committee on the Status and Distribution of Gastropods. It is under the auspices of this committee that we will prosecute our effort to monograph the North American freshwater gastropod fauna.
All of you should receive, via regular mail in the next couple months, an application to join the FMCS. (I may have to contact some of you individually for your mailing addresses.) I should emphasize that we do hope that this new organization will include a worldwide membership. The problems we face are clearly global in scope.
A substantial fraction of our effort in November was spent making plans for the first FMCS symposium, scheduled for March 17 - 19 in Chattanooga. You won't want to miss this important event. One mailing went out in October, and a second is planned as soon as the final schedule can be worked out. See the informational blurb from Paul Johnson appended to this message.
PAY ATTENTION!!! The deadline for receipt of abstracts for the contributed paper sessions is December 15. Don't delay! There's an on-line method to register for the meeting, but not for abstract submission. Abstract submission must be done the old-fashioned way, via snail-mail. You've got 11 days to get your abstract to Paul Johnson, so get off your tails!
See you in Chattanooga,
Rob
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Dear Colleges ,
This is a reminder concerning early registration and abstract
submissions for the first symposium of the Freshwater Mollusk
Conservation Society. The meeting will be held on March 17-19,
1999, at
the Chattanooga Clarion Hotel, in Chattanooga, Tennessee. The
symposium
is hosted by the Tennessee Aquarium and the Southeast Aquatic Research
Institute. This meeting will be similar to the 1992 and 1995
"Conservation and Management of Freshwater Mussels" meetings in St
Louis, but this meeting will accept papers dealing with other freshwater
mollusks (gastropods and sphaeriids). A published proceedings
for this
symposium is planned.
The deadline for early registration and submission of abstracts (oral
and poster) for presentation is December 15, 1998. The symposium
committee will design the meeting program by January 15, 1998, so we
would like everyone's cooperation with their abstract submissions.
Meeting and instructions for authors information can be obtain
from the
Southeast Aquatic Research Institute website (http://www.sari.org/),
by
accessing the "Current Activities" link. The website will also
support
on-line registration.
Please direct any questions to the address below.
Thanks,
Paul Johnson
Research Scientist I
Southeast Aquatic Research Institute
817-B North Market St.
Chattanooga, TN 37405
Phone (423) 785-4074
Fax (423) 266-5124
http://www.sari.org/
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