With the support of the Local Arrangements Committee, the CSBE-SCGAB and NABEC are working closely together to develop an excellent program for the Annual General Meeting and Joint Technical Conference in Orillia, ON this July 15-18. There are four enticing and informative workshops scheduled for the Sunday at the start of the conference:

• Biogas - Technical Approaches to Farm-Based Systems;
• Composting Facilities - Design Challenges and Solutions;
• Energy Crop Production; and
• Nanotechnology - Practical Solutions in Agriculture, Food and Biological Systems.

Participants in the workshops are eligible for continuing professional development credits. Over 120 abstracts have been received for presentations and posters in the technical sessions that will follow during the conference. To round out the schedule, the Local Arrangements Committee has planned an exciting slate of professional and recreational activities. Visit the conference website (http://www.bioeng.ca/nabec-csbe2012) for more details to help you plan your trip to Orillia this summer!

ASABE has signed a contract with a marketing consultant firm to help the professional society understand why ag/bio engineering students and faculty do or don’t engage with ASABE.

With the help of faculty and student leaders at three university sites, the consulting firm plans to visit each campus to conduct on-site interviews with non-member faculty and hold focus groups with non-member undergrads. They will also conduct phone interviews ahead of time with student and faculty members, as well as meeting face-to-face as time allows during campus visits. When the project is complete, the consulting firm will present ASABE with recommendations for a recruitment strategy and path forward for assessing and addressing our membership needs. This particular project is projected to be completed by the end of the first quarter of 2012. CSBE is hoping to learn some pointers from this exercise to bring new perspective to our own recruitment efforts within Canada.

Along this line, ASABE has launched its 2012 Initiative Fund program (http://www.asabe.org/about-us/governance/initiative-fund.aspx), to support the creation of new products or services and to seed new activities targeting priorities of the society. Namely on:

Image

• Enhance the image of ASABE to other professional societies, the public, and the profession
• Build cohesion within the Society - feeling/pride of belonging
• Consistent image/brand/professional appearance

Expertise

• Strong in our traditional areas and growing in our emerging areas
• Focus our expertise on emerging topics within renewable energy, water, fiber, food
• Define core competencies
• Do we aspire to be best - what arena(s)?

Outreach

• Align Society with programs at universities
• Cooperation with other groups
• Engagement of young professionals

Student outreach K-12 and university