Nominations for the next Board of Directors elections including election of President and President Elect has already started.  Submit your candidate now! Dear SCB Europe Section Member,      The deadline to submit nominations for the next Board of Directors (BOD) elections for the Society for Conservation Biology – Europe Section is fast approaching. Please submit nominations by Friday 31 October. We have five seats that will be opening:      BOARD MEMBER We need candidates that are willing and capable to allocate time to the work on the SCB-ES Board. We do not need candidates unwilling to take on SCB-ES tasks on top of their usual workload. Board Members’ duties include active input to BoD activities and the willingness to chair one of our standing committees.  We particularly seek for persons interested in conservation education and/or policy. BoD activities also include travel to two BoD meetings per year somewhere in Europe usually in February and October.   PRESIDENT ELECT The President-Elect shall closely cooperate with the president in section activities, and perform the duties of the President when the latter is absent. Term of office for the President-Elect shall be 3 years followed by 3 years as President. PRESIDENT The President's responsibility is to maintain and improve the visibility and activity of the Section in accordance with SCB strategic foci. The President shall organize and preside over meetings and mailings (including electronic mailings) intended to substitute for meetings, and shall serve as the Section’s voting representative on the Society’s Board of Governors. If you know of anyone who would be a good candidate for these slots (including YOURSELF; self-nominations are quite common) please submit this SCB Europe Section Call for Board Nominations  Form by e-mail to:                      Edina Mozes  SCB-Europe coordinator               In subject indicate EXACTLY to facilitate my work:      "SCB-ES Elections" E-mail address: europe@conbio.org The deadline for nominations is 31 October 2014.

Capercaillie, Banya and hot discussions: The Board goes north-east.

Lake Ladoga, Russia: Leaving from the big city of St. Petersburg, it takes only 5 hours (including 2 hours traffic jams) to reach the taiga and the largest lake in Europe, holding 1% of the world’s freshwater. Few wooden huts, simple-style toilet and a small Russian sauna („Banya“) served the perfect settings for our board meeting. The Board has now covered its most significant proportion of geographic Europe, from Portugal (Francisco) to St. Petersburg (Rustam, hosting  the meeting) – an aerial distance of 3600 km. It also included Edina, our new coordinator (who will introduce herself officially in the next blog entry).

Following the tradition, our meeting opened with a symposium at the University of St. Petersburg, jointly organised by the university, the regional NGO Baltic Fund for Nature, and SCB. It comprised  two presentations by Russian conservationists, and several introductory contributions by the Europe Section on how SCB works, what it does and a collection of main issues on our agenda at the regional, national, and international levels (e.g. CAP, IPBES, roadless areas). The venue – a spectacular Rococo-style room within a 400m-long corridor, added a particular historical aura to the event: A man-size golden clock took the elegant, luxurious Tsar way of reminding the speakers to keep to their time slots.

Having our Board meeting in Russia is indeed a historical event for the Society: An important strategic aim was to strengthen the links between East and West, improve the integration of Russian researchers and students in the SCB community, and, overall, draw greater attention to the Greater Europe in the Section’s agenda.

To experience wilderness and near-roadless areas, we travelled into the taiga and visited the beaches of Lake Ladoga and a bird-ringing station in the strictly protected, Nizhne-Svirsky Nature Reserve, encompassing an area of 41,000 ha. A travel on a narrow road (video taken by Francisco will come soon, to demonstrate how shaky it was ;-)) gave us the opportunity to watch several capercaillies, millions of mushrooms, and several spots of beaver activity. Finally, at the sandy shores of the (sadly over-fished and still-too-polluted) lake, we came to a crossroads: Where a small stream ends at the waters, animals have to pass as well. There we found the footsteps of elks, wild boars, wolves, raccoon dog and a bear. A crossroads also for us: here we shared a glass of champagne (actually plastic cups) with our András to commemorate 12 years of service to the SCB on his last board meeting.

 

Back at the beautifully simple venue, an attentive crew allowed us to maximise the time allocated for intense discussions. Issues of particular importance in our Board meeting involved membership and involvement: how can we improve participation of students, and better serve their wishes and needs? Can we facilitate the creation of new, vivid Chapters that would support local themes? And how can we improve communication – especially toward ICCB-ECCB? Other thematically important issues were wilderness, roadless areas and EU policy (e.g. the CAP).

We are indebted to Rustam (Board member and Director of the Baltic Fund for Nature), his assistant Tanya and the team at the reserve for making the visit of the Society in “true” eastern Europe so smooth.

For more information on issues such as the ICCB-ECCB, Šumava and the Common Agricultural Policy, and to know more about our Edina, our new coordinator, please await the next blog entries over the coming days.

SCB Europe Section Call For Nomination - Be a BoD Member Yourself or Nominate Somebody!

For the next Board of Directors (BOD) elections of the Society for Conservation Biology - Europe Section (SCB-ES) we have four open seats:

3 Board Members

1 President-Elect

Ideally we would like to have two to three candidates for each position with a good balance of nationalities and gender.

We need candidates that are willing and capable to allocate time to the work on the SCB-ES Board. We do not need candidates unwilling to take on SCB-ES tasks on top of their usual workload!

Board Members’ duties include active input to BoD activities and the willingness to chair one of our standing committees. BoD activities also include travel to two BoD meetings per year somewhere in Europe usually in February and October.

The President-Elect shall closely cooperate with the president in section activities, and perform the duties of the President when the latter is absent. Term of office for the The President-Elect shall be 3 years followed by 3 years as President.

If you know of anyone who would be a good candidate for one of these slots (including YOURSELF; self-nominations are quite common) please submit the following form by e-mail to:

Mikko Mönkkönen, mikko.monkkonen@jyu.fi, BoD Member and Nominations Officer, before 15th OCTOBER 2011.

In subject indicate EXACTLY to facilitate my work:

"SCB-ES elections"

Indicate also if you are nominating someone for President Elect or Board Member.

Please note that the deadline for nominations is 15 October 2011.

Best regards,

Mikko Mönkkönen

SCB BoD Member and Nominations Officer

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Nomination Form – Board of Directors, Society for Conservation Biology - Europe Section

Nominations are sought for four members on the BOD: 1 President Elect and 3 Board Members

DEADLINE: 15 October 2011

ELECTIONS: 1 to 30 November 2011

TERM OF OFFICE: Board members 3 years starting 1 January 2012, President-Elect 3 years starting 1 January 2012 followed by 3 years as President

Nominees must be members in good standing of the Society for Conservation Biology and members of the Europe Section and have to accept running for election before the deadline.

By agreeing to stand for election, nominees indicate their willingness to serve the SCB-ES by attending all Board of Directors meetings during their term of office (three years for all officers). Board meetings occur twice a year somewhere in Europe. In addition, Board members are expected to be actively engaged in directing the SCB-ES through committee work.

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Nominee's Information

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Nomination Category: "Board member" or "President Elect"

Address:

City:

State, Province or Region:

Postal Code:

Country (of residence):

Phone:

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If you can provide a short biographical sketch of the Nominee, please do it:

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