Committees' reports and home-made Tokaj wine - first day of the BoD Meeting

  On Friday, the Board started its semi-annual meeting in the beautiful botanic garden of Vácrátót, Hungary.  Friday afternoon was dedicated to the reports of the committees of the previous months (followed by tasting some nice Hungarian wines and spirits).
The Education Committee is involved in organizing the summer schools (GSS and iSCB) and Rob Marrs, chair of the committee joined "a task force to develop a course/training in conservation leadership to provide a non-US perspective. This was an initiative set up by the President (Paul Beier) and was done very quickly and was submitted to the SCB Global Board of Governors at the New Zealand conference. It was well received and there are moves afoot to progress this.".
The Policy Commitee including Pierre Ibisch as chair and with 10 members  held a meeting in November 11-13 2011, in Ghent. The committee is now getting deep into the issue of analysing renewable energy resources from an ecological perspective. Roadless areas initiative is also in the focus in addition to examining the Sumava National Park case. The Committee participated in a pre-sessional meeting of the Wild Europe Partnership followed by a ‘roundtable’ in the European Parliament.
The Student Affair Committee chaired by Nuno Curado with 8 more members was represented by Piero Visconti, Board member. SCB Students’ Wiki page had a major review, both in content and format, in order to be more reader and student friendly. A stronger branding of the Student wikipage is in progress, to better  identify it as being SCB and well as a tool to and from students. A Twitter account has been created (@SCBStudentWiki) as well as an e-mail for sending ideas and suggestion regarding the wiki page(scbstudentwiki@gmail.com). The new student mailing list is now up and running. The Committee also actively organize ECCB2012 student activities.
Membership and Chapter Committee led by Raphael Arlettaz made a good progress in chapter establishment - one in Hungary and one in Switzerland has been formed in the previous two months. The National Contact Network was also updated with the need for more input from specific countries.
The Communication Committee faces a challenging and interesting time as the new chair has to be appointed with a new strategic plan. As the ECCB2012 is approaching, the committee will have a substantial role in promoting the Section in the conference and provide an interface where conservation issues can be highlighted for the greater public.
If you have any question regarding how you can contribute, please write: europe@conbio.org