Last week we were thrilled to take part in the second Victorian Biodiversity
Conference held at La Trobe University in Bundoora. It was a fantastic event that
showcased the awesome conservation work being done by research students
and post-docs around Victoria and beyond. There were also a great set of panel
discussions and plenaries that got people talking.
The conference was also exciting for us as we held a launch event for the
Greater Melbourne Chapter that was attended by about 30 people. Kylie Soanes
gave an introduction to the chapter, outlining what our prospective aims are and
what we plan to achieve in this establishment phase during 2018. Tim Doherty
also spoke about the role that chapters can play and rallied everyone to follow
us on Twitter so we can get more followers than the Sydney and Brisbane
chapters!
The event was interactive as we asked attendees to chat with us about what
useful roles they thought the Greater Melbourne Chapter could play. We also
provided post-it notes for people to contribute their ideas to a large poster on
‘What can the Greater Melbourne Chapter do for you?’, as well as another poster
with a map of Victoria where people could pin their conservation and research
projects. The event was generously sponsored by the Society for Conservation
Biology Oceania through catering for our hungry guests.
We’re currently working to collate all of these ideas to guide the future direction
of our chapter. Once complete, we will share an update here and also distribute
it to those who signed up to the mailing list. If you have any ideas in the
meantime, please get in touch with us at melbournescb [@] gmail . com.
(and don’t forget to follow us on Twitter! @MelbourneSCB)
Greater Melbourne Chapter 