I hope all NASCE members have had a relaxing and enjoying Christmas/New Year break.
I am excited to inform you that organization of the 5th Biennial NASCE meeting in Florida, 2019 has commenced. Negotiation to publish the scientific proceedings of the 5Th NASCE meeting as a special issue of General and Comparative Endocrinology has already begun. Once the exact meeting dates are finalized (set to be in the last half of May 2019), information on the meeting will be placed on the NASCE website.
Importantly, since the 2018-2019 NASCE membership fees were not collected as part of the registration for the joint 4th NASCE and 18th ICCE meeting in June 2017 at Lake Louise, the number of fully paid-up members is currently down by a large number. I urge all NASCE members who have not yet renewed their 2017-2019 membership to renew their membership on line via the NASCE website (http://nasce-snaec.com/membership/) at your earliest convenience. You can check with our secretary if you are unsure whether you have renewed.
A healthy financial situation is important for NASCE to function properly and to fulfill its mission. Your membership fees fund all NASCE operations, including research fellowship awards (two competitions per year) and backing the biennial scientific meetings. For the recent Lake Louise NASCE-ICCE joint meeting, NASCE funds were used to sponsor the two Gorbman-Bern lecturers (our two premier lectureship awards recognizing life-time contributions and early investigators in comparative endocrinology, respectively), one symposium, two student poster/oral presentation awards, and over 20 trainee travel/registration/hotel awards. NASCE is also a co-sponsor for a symposium at the upcoming 8th Asia and Oceania Society for Comparative Endocrinology Intercongress to be held in Sydney 2018. Your NASCE executives have also authorized a transfer of some seed money to the Local Organizing Committee of the 5th Biennial NASCE meeting to facilitate the initial set up of this meeting in 2019. The extent of what your society can do to support these very important endeavours totally depends on your membership fees.
Watch out for the call for nomination of the 2019 Gorbman-Bern Memorial Lectureship and the Gorbman-Bern New Investigator Award later this year (deadline planned for around mid-Nov 2018). More information on these two awards can be found on the NASCE website (http://nasce-snaec.com/nasce-awards/).
Best wishes for continual success in all your research endeavours.