Announcements

Registration Now Open, NCB-ESA 2011 Meeting, Minneapolis, Minnesota

Members of the North Central Branch:

Our annual NCB-ESA Meeting starts in 61 days (March 13). To register for the meeting, reserve hotel rooms, and submit your talk, poster and symposium presentations, see the NCB Meeting web page at: http://www.ncb2011.umn.edu/index.htm.

For more information about the Program, contact our Program Chair, Dr. Mark Boetel, NDSU (Mark.Boetel@ndsu.edu).

The NCB meeting rate is $115 plus tax per night for single OR double occupancy. Reservations are guaranteed if made by 5:00PM, February 16, 2011, and then on a space-available basis until the conference date. Conveniently located on the University of Minnesota campus, the Radisson University Hotel offers guests an on-site Fitness Center, complimentary access to the U of M fitness facilities, a Business Center and complimentary transportation within a five mile radius of the hotel, and complimentary high-speed wireless internet.

Please visit our NCB Meeting Web site (http://www.ncb2011.umn.edu/index.htm) for all meeting updates.

Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee, Don't miss out on the Minneapolis NCB!

Local Arrangements, Co-Chairs:
Bill Hutchison, David Ragsdale
Questions, contact: hutch002@umn.edu

Fall 2010 Letter from Rick Foster

I hope that you all had an enjoyable and productive summer. Now that classes are back in session and field work is starting to slow down, it's time to start thinking about our annual meeting. While the natural tendency is to postpone planning for branch meetings until after the national meetings, I encourage everyone to take a few minutes to mark the dates of the 2011 NCB-ESA meeting on your calendar. Please give some thought as to how you might contribute to the meeting. The latest information about the meeting can be found at the NCB-ESA web site located at www.esancb.org. Look under "Annual Meeting" for the most current information.

The 2011 NCB-ESA Annual Meeting will be held March 13-16 at the Radisson University Hotel in Minneapolis. Local Arrangements Co-chairs David Ragsdale and Bill Hutchison have arranged for an excellent venue and have negotiated reasonable room rates for participants.

Program Chair Mark Boetel is working hard to develop an educational program that should be attractive to branch members regardless of their area of specialization. As I mentioned in my June letter, if the branch meetings have not met your needs in the past, I encourage you to submit a symposium pre-proposal (Due December 1) that will be of interest to you and your colleagues. Also, I want to congratulate Mark Boetel on his election as Secretary/Treasurer of the NCB. Please find an opportunity to thank Mark for his willingness to serve in this critical Branch position.

President-elect Fred Baxendale has worked long and hard at filling all the committee positions. Thanks, Fred, for all your efforts and thanks to all of you who were willing to take on those committee assignments.

Finally, I want to strongly encourage you to nominate NCB members for the various awards. Having served on the Awards Committee in the past, I have found it frustrating to have awards with few or no nominees when I know there are many worthy individuals who were not nominated. I want to particularly ask all department heads to review the various Branch awards and consider nominating faculty, staff, or students you believe would be suitable nominees. For those of you in government service or private industry, please consider the contributions of your colleagues and ask yourself if they are worthy of recognition.

I wish you all a successful fall season. I look forward to seeing many of you in San Diego and I hope to see all of you in Minneapolis in March.

June 2010 Letter from Rick Foster

I am deeply honored that you have chosen me to serve as your president this year. When I attended my first North Central Branch meeting in Fargo, North Dakota in 1976, I never dreamed that one day I would be in this position. I hope I prove myself worthy of your trust.

I want to thank John Obrycki and the presidents who preceded him for leaving the branch in excellent condition. Despite the current economic climate, the Louisville meeting was an educational, social, and financial success. Each meeting is the result of the efforts of a large group of people, most of whom are volunteers. The branch has plenty of opportunities for you to get more involved in its operation; but more on that a little later.

The co-chairs of the Local Arrangements Committee for the 2011 meeting, David Ragsdale and Bill Hutchison, are pleased to announce next year’s meeting will be held March 13-16 at the Radisson University in Minneapolis, Minnesota. For those who were around in 2000, this is the same hotel we used last time Minnesota hosted the NCB ESA meeting. The location provides a wealth of dining, entertainment and shopping, all accessible through a variety of public transportation from light rail, city busses, and a shuttle service offered by the Radisson University.

Mark Boetel will serve as the Program Chair for the 2011 meeting. Although the meeting is still a long way off, it’s not too soon to start thinking about symposia that you might want to organize. I would invite those branch members who don’t typically attend the branch meetings, to consider organizing a symposium that would make the meeting more attractive to you and your colleagues. Mark has developed a list of general symposia themes for consideration by the membership and hopes that these themes will spark interest in submitting/organizing symposia. The general themes are:

  1. Teaching Entomology in Today’s Tech-Intensive Society
  2. What’s New in Systematic Entomology
  3. Colony Collapse Disorder
  4. Social Networking to Enhance the Entomology Profession
  5. Soybean Aphid Biology/Decision Aids/Management
  6. Bed Bugs/Bat Bugs in the US
  7. Insect Symbionts

David Ragsdale, who has served as our Secretary/Treasurer for several years, will soon be leaving the NCB to become Head of the Department of Entomology at Texas A&M University. I want to thank Dave for his many years of excellent service to our branch and wish him well in Texas. His departure will create a void that needs to be filled. David will continue to serve as Secretary/Treasurer through the end of the 2011 meeting in Minneapolis. If you have an interest in serving as Secretary/Treasurer of the NCB, please contact Rob Venette (venet001@umn.edu) as soon as possible. We need the names of volunteers no later than June 30 so they can be placed on the ballot.

President-elect Fred Baxendale has been busy filling the various committee positions but a number of positions remain open. If you would like to serve on an NCB committee, please contact Fred (fbaxendale1@unl.edu).

I hope you all have a wonderful summer.

Rick Foster
President
ESA North Central Branch

February 2010 Message from John Obrycki

Members of the North Central Branch:
Our meeting in Louisville begins in 20 days. The final preparations for the meeting are underway. By the end of this week — the draft of the meeting program will be available on-line at the meeting website. Eight, very interesting, symposia have been organized for this meeting:

Over 30 student competition papers have been submitted, along with 23 student poster presentations. Another 50 submitted posters and presentations round out the scientific program.

A student lunch supported by our corporate sponsors will allow our students to hear about employment opportunities.

Don't miss out on meeting pre-registration - -which is available until February 28, 2010. The block of rooms held for the NCB meeting at the Brown Hotel will also be available until February 28.

Leave the cold and snow of the upper Midwest, For the Louisville NCB meeting spring fest...

John J. Obrycki
President
ESA North Central Branch

Message from John Obrycki

Members of the North Central Branch:
Our annual north central branch meeting starts in 68 days (March 14). I hope you will attend and participate in this meeting. You still have time to organize a symposium. For more information contact the program co-chairs (Drs. Janet Lensing (janet.lensing@uky.edu) and Susan Romero (susan.romero@uky.edu).

The meeting will be held at the Brown Hotel in Louisville, KY. Information about the Brown Hotel can be found at by clicking here.

To make your hotel reservation - please click here.

The NCB meeting rate is $119 plus tax per night for single OR double occupancy with a $15 additional charge above double occupancy. Reservations are guaranteed if made by 5:00PM, February 20, 2010, and then on a space-available basis until the conference date. Amenities at the Brown Hotel include complimentary high-speed wireless internet and van shuttle service to the Louisville International Airport.

To register for the meeting, please click here. Pre-registration is available until February 28, 2010.

Please visit our NCB meeting website for meeting updates.

Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee Don't miss out on the Louisville NCB

John J. Obrycki
President
ESA North Central Branch

2010 North Central Branch Meeting

Mark your calendars for the 2010 NCB Branch meeting at the Brown Hotel in Louisville, KY from March 14-17, 2010.

2009 NCB Insect Photo Salon Catalog

The 2009 NBC Insect Photo Salon Catalog including winning images, entrants and judges is now available online at "Photo Salon Winners" under the "Awards" tab. The direct link is: www.esancb.org/awards/photo_salon.php.

Message from Steve Yaninek

Dear ESA North Central Branch Members:
This will be my last message to members of the branch. My term as president comes to an end next week at the annual meeting where I'll pass the gavel to John Obrycki. It has been my honor to serve the members, and my privilege to work with the dedicated leadership provided by our hard working officers, committee chairs and members.

We're about to complete the cycle of branch activities with the annual meeting next week in St. Louis. We have a great meeting planned thanks to our Program co-chairs Tom Coudron and Holly Popham, and our Local Arrangements Chair Bruce Babbitt. Members have responded by exceeding our early registration goals. More information about the meeting will follow below, but first some important news about branch elections.

Election Results
The NCB elections results are in, and I am pleased to announce that the next President-Elect is Rick Foster, and the new Member-at-Large on the Executive Committee is Tiffany Heng-Moss. Congratulations to Rick and Tiffany!

Program Updates
The branch meeting is next week, and we now have the final program posted on the web here. If you need to upload a presentation or plan to present a poster, please review the equipment specifications and guidelines outlined in the program and presented at the bottom of this message for your convenience. For additional information about the meeting go to our website here.

Meeting Volunteers
The Local Arrangement Committee could still use a handful of volunteers to help with registration, the AV preview room, and symposia session support. If you're willing to contribute a couple of hours of your time, please contact Bruce Barrett ( BarrettB@missouri.edu ) our Local Arrangements Chairman.

Important Meeting Contacts
Program Co-Chairs: Tom Coudron ( Tom.Coudron@ars.usda.gov ) and
Holly Popham ( Holly.Popham@ars.usda.gov )
Local Arrangements: Bruce Barrett ( BarrettB@missouri.edu )
Linnaean Games: Wyatt Hoback, Linnaean Game Master ( hobackww@unk.edu ),
Susan Weller, Linnaean Game committee, chair ( welle008@umn.edu ).
See you St Louey,
Steve Yaninek
2008-09 ESA NCB President

Member Survey

Following the recent branch meeting in Columbus, the NCB Executive Committee conducted a survey of members to learn what might be done to improve the meeting in the future. The survey was designed to provide useful information about the demographics of our membership (years in ESA, years in NCB, category, home state), meeting attendance, appropriateness of meeting topics including structured and unstructured social time, reasons for attending or not attending, costs, and suggestions for future meetings including the role of the meeting as a venue for recruiting future students. The results of the survey are now in (see link below). This information will be used to plan the meeting next year, and should help with future planning. We are indebt to member Jim Jasinski for developing the SurveyMonkey tool used for this survey.

Survey Results