The Midwest-Great Lakes Chapter of the Society for Ecological Restoration (MWGL SER) Board of Directors has been working hard to increase our chapter benefits to members as part of our implementation of the Chapter’s Five Year Strategic Plan. Much of our focus in the last year has been on the improvement of communications and member interaction and the facilitation of knowledge transfer.

The Communications Committee (Lauren Umek, Liam Heneghan, Rocky Smiley, Troy Anderson, Nancy Aten, Steve Glass, Jen Lyndall) have embraced a communications strategy focusing on social media to encourage member interaction, highlight restoration projects, showcase members, provide job alerts, and allow easy dissemination of chapter news. You can follow us on Twitter (@MWGL_SER), join our Facebook group (https://www.facebook.com/groups/116944704989364/) and our LinkedIn group (https://www.linkedin.com/groups/MidwestGreat-Lakes-Chapter-Society-Ecological-1810671?home=&gid=1810671&trk=anet_ug_hm). We have also begun to transition our newsletter (Restoration News Midwest) from a pdf to a blog format (here!), which will allow us to provide our chapter members with more frequent updates on ecological restoration topics of interest without overloading our members with emails.

Our amazing website editor, Nancy Aten, has done an impressive job updating the website and adding in a new restoration events calendar. This Google calendar (accessible via the Chapter website) will compile restoration-related events occurring within in the region. If you have an ecological restoration related event that you would like posted please send the information to us (mwgl.ser@gmail.com).

The Subregional and State Activities Committee (formerly known as the Subregional Restoration Groups Committee) is busy planning various state events to complement our annual meeting. These smaller state events will vary in size and content depending on local member preferences. We anticipate that state events may range from happy hours to field trips to workshops. Our first state event was a student career and professional development workshop that was held October 24, 2014 at the Matthaei Botanical Gardens & Nichols Arboretum in Ann Arbor, Michigan. More details on this exciting event will be posted to Restoration News Midwest soon. Please send any ideas for state events to any of our committee members (Don Tilton, Chris Lenhart, John Shuey, Roger Anderson, Mike Enright, Steve Glass) or to mwgl.ser@gmail.com.

Finally, the Annual Meeting Committee (Rocky Smiley, Jen Lyndall, Young Choi, Don Tilton, Dan Larkin, Lauren Umek, Roger Anderson, Pamela Rice, Steve Glass) has made significant progress in planning our Seventh Annual Chapter Meeting that will be held March 27 to March 29, 2015 at the Chicago Botanic Gardens. The call for abstracts for contributed presentations and the call for symposia and workshop proposals has been released. Please see our chapter webpage (https://chapter.ser.org/midwestgreatlakes/current-meeting/) for more details.

We hope that you will participate in these activities and join us in enhancing our amazing member community!

Jen Lyndall, President