2020 International Congress of Entomology (ICE)
On 25 March 2020, it was announced that ICE would be postponed until 2021, and this was communicated to ESC members by Eblast on 27 March. As this was past the deadline for refunding of registrations (1 March 2020), refunds are not available following the postponement announcement. ESC has learned that expenses already incurred by ICE exceed the total of registrations received before the postponement decision, and so there simply is no available money to refund. Those who have registered will be able to use their registration in 2021; those who are unable to do so can transfer their registration to someone else. See https://ice2020helsinki.fi/ for more information.
ICE Student Travel Awards
Three students were awarded $850 each towards the costs of attending ICE on condition that they registered and submitted an abstract for a presentation at the Congress. Awardees will receive their awards this year, if they have fulfilled those conditions.
National Insect Appreciation Day (NAIAD)
8 June 2020 is the second annual NAIAD. Originally, it had been planned to make it bigger and better than the first NAIAD with more group activities focusing on insects. As a result of COVID-19, no group interactions will be promoted for the 2020 NAIAD. The scaled-back event will feature the insect picture challenge (see https://esc-sec.ca/entomology-resources/education-and-outreach/). Regional entomological societies may feature other virtual activities, or promote activities that can be done individually while social distancing.
Print subscriptions to The Canadian Entomologist (TCE)
As communicated to ESC members by Eblast on 26 March 2020, COVID-19 has forced Cambridge University Press, the publisher of TCE, to suspend production of print issues of all the journals they publish. On-line issues of TCE and the manuscript processing process are currently on schedule, although disruptions resulting from work-at-home and similar precautions may slow manuscript processing in the future. The publisher has assured ESC that, once the COVID-19 crisis is past, the missing print issues will be printed and mailed to those who subscribe to them.
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