Many thanks to everyone who was able to attend our annual business meeting on May 12. We had some really great discussions, particularly around the annual Debye lecture at Cornell University. This is a lecture that the local section traditionally funds, and one of the most prestigious lectures offered by the Cornell University Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology. The local section will continue to fund this lecture series, but is going to start having the lectures recorded, so they can be posted online for the entire community to enjoy.
There was also general interest around the idea of hosting a NERM (Northeast regional meeting of the ACS) in 3-4 years. The executive committee will continue to investigate how to proceed with this, and if anyone is interested in helping, we encourage you to contact us!
Importantly, we have new bylaws! Our previous bylaws were last updated in 1981. There have been some major innovations since then (not least the internet), and our newly updated bylaws allow us to make use of this technology to enable greater input from the community for e.g. officer elections. These bylaws will soon be updated at the ACS website, and will also be kept available at our own site.
Finally, we will proceed with our annual picnic/meet & greet event on July 28th. We will send out an RSVP survey when the time gets closer so we can estimate how many people will attend, and how much vegetarian food to get. Be on the lookout, it was great fun last year, and we hope to see even more people this time around!