Noelene Duckett, 5 Amery Street, Ashburton  VIC  3147.   Email: aduckett7@msn.com

Welcome to the first digital-only Range Management Newsletter.   I hope you enjoy reading this issue – catch up on latest details about the ARS AGM to be held on 25 May 2016 and the International Rangeland Congress which takes place in Saskatoon, Canada in July 2016, as well as a variety of other rangeland articles.

I would particularly like to highlight a report from Ben Forsyth who has recently returned from a trip to the US where he attended the 69th Annual Meeting of Society for Range Management (SRM) meeting (amongst other interesting rangeland events!)  This meeting is typically a very large event and Ben has made some great observations as well as some thought-provoking comparisons to our own ARS conferences.  One of Ben’s most interesting comments related to attendances at this meeting.  As Ben reports, the outgoing President Pat Shaver appeared concerned by the number of people who didn’t attend this year’s meeting, most likely because of recent funding cuts.  He suggested that members should invest in themselves as professionals rather than expecting others to pick up the tab, and to consider value of being a member of a professional society in terms of your career.

In light of this, I challenge all of you to think about what belonging to a professional society such as the Australian Rangeland Society really means?  Please email your response to this sentence “To me, belonging to the ARS means……..”   I’ll collate the responses for the next newsletter.

Contributions for the next newsletter

Have you attended a recent meeting or conference or perhaps know of something exciting coming up in the near future?  Or do you know of some interesting research currently being undertaken?  Has anything else rangeland-related recently caught your eye?

If you can answer yes to any of these questions,  please think about submitting an article for the Range Management Newsletter.  The next newsletter is due out in July/August so please have your articles to me by early July.