Time and places, planning future TDWG annual meetings.

[pmergen]

Costa Rica is considering hosting the 2016, pending on the decision of the new Vice president of the host institution. They could also consider 2017.

We did receive a few expressions of interests (just mails or inquiry from professional conference organizing companies)

I would suggest to wait for Costa Rica's confirmation (in about 2 weeks) and then launch/remind on a call for expression of interest and submitting full bids for those seriously interested. We got so far (too) many expression of interests, never follow by an actual full bid even if the executive and time and places said they were willing to get a full bid and evaluate it.

Any suggestions to improve this situation ?

the updated Conference Guidelines look good and was used efficiently by the few submitting a bid to host a TDWG meeting.

Thanks

Pat

[CynthiaParr-USDA]

I think it would help to have more active follow up with those who express interest. Also we may need to offer assistance in preparing the full bid. We also could ask those who did not submit the full bid why they didn't follow through.

In particular, we should ask @jmacklin about a bid for Canada -- which year, etc.

[pmergen]

the answer was most of time (lack of time) or people seemed to be interested more as individual and it turned out to be difficult to actually go through the hosting in practice and get all agreements. Some also when they saw what is expected in the conference guidelines renounced

For the commercial event organizers, I always offered them (a lot) of assistance by explaining they have to work with local experts in our domain and not only them as stand alone. Many when this was said did then not contact me back, others who did were put in contact with TDWG participants in the concerned countries. Here some times a local scientific host interested could be found (ie Stockholm, Florence ...). in some other cases not or not yet. Got also manifestation of interests from places like Jordania, Dubai, etc ... where we have no contacts directly). in terms of commercial event organizers I had good contacts with New Zealand and the Barnf center in Canada, but basically depends if our contacts in those countries want to work with them ...

[dkoureas]

I think I mentioned this at the Jonkoping meeting. I think we might want to also reflect on the possibility of coupling the TDWG meetings with other big relevant events. This will increase the impact of the meetings, attract new audience and possible minimise the expenses. This could also be a good fall back plan when no solid proposals for hosting the annual conference come in.

[pmergen]

Yes in the past, there were also discussions to do smaller TDWG events/workshops, a TDWG session in other big events and not just the main conference. WOuld be a job for the regional representatives. But this remained largely for years in the planing and good ideas, in practice we had no time to do it in a more structured way as the organisation of the main conference and ratification of the charters and standards took already all the time we do no have. With a part time person hired and a new better working website etc ... could work out better in practice to devote time to this.

[jmacklin]

I am still intending to submit a proposal for 2017. This is Canada's 150th anniversary so there are lots of events going on especially in the capital, Ottawa where the meeting would be held. I hope to accomplish this by end of July. There may also be an opportunity to join in with SPNHC in 2018 as we received a request from New Zealand and are a little edgy as to whether this is possible... If both meetings were combined, it may be more feasible. I have copied in a piece of the correspondence we have had below for reference. Note that this is a bit of a remote site but they are celebrating a major anniversary and are willing to go the extra mile.

Hi Linda,

And a special hi to you Beth. I am pleased to learn that you are interested in our proposal. I am hoping that with the interest shown that I can now approach the University of Otago to co host the conference. They are the oldest university in the country and have excellent zoology and bio science programs. We are also building a conservation centre in Dunedin, museum focussed materials and preventive, and given the absence of natural history conservation specialism in Australasia, we are hoping to develop a focus in this area.

It would be great if we could also involve the bio informatics groups. Our museum is lobbying for an Atlas Aotearoa along the lines of the ALA and it is quite possible we will get national support, perhaps even from Te Papa, the national museum.

We would also be able to run workshops and tours to areas of local interest. There is excellent Eco tourism with a wealth of marine wildlife hotspots - seals, whales, penguins and albatross colonies etc.

I do fully understand your dilemma about attracting members from the U.S. But Dunedin is a very connected town that could offer a wide range of events should This go ahead. I also agree that it would be important to attract strong numbers from Australasia.

I will discuss with colleagues next week and hope that we can come up with a plan we can progress

Thoughts?

JAmes

[pmergen]

hi interesting, can you elaborate a bit more, the 2018 New Zealand, I was invited last month to the New Zealand embassy in Belgium and they have quite some nice support and events all over the country. where would the SPNCH meeting be ?

[CynthiaParr-USDA]

I have been contacted by SPNCH about a joint meeting in 2018 in New Zealand. This is another topic of conversation so I will close this issue and start another focussed on New Zealand.

[pmergen]

Yes nz is interesting have been invited by the Nz embassy earlier this year in Belgium. They are keen to attract us and can help witn sponsoring search and such.