| Happy Holidays and Happy New Year!
The CCDG is asking for your time and special attention to membership this year. Please consider this letter and the intentions behind it. Our plea for membership is at a critical time in our history because we are struggling financially and our continued existence is in question.
So, when we ask for your membership or renewal of membership we are doing so to ensure the continuance of providing the scientific community with the following:
- Topical Speakers and subjects
- Affordable and Invaluable LC and GC Schools every year
- Awarding the Distinguished Scientist Annual Award, and the and the CCDG Yearly Chemistry Scholarship Award to an undergrad or graduate student doing work in the chromatographic sciences.
- Networking opportunities with other members of our group and other chemists and scientists in related fields.
- The belonging to a non-profit science based organization that's main intent is to "Share in Knowledge".
Our past year was a stellar year with the speakers we were so honored to host including; Dr. Oliver Fiehn from the University of California, Davis at our Spring Symposium, along with 4 other Metabolomics Scientists, who, along with Dr Fiehn, are leaders in the Metabolomics Field. Dr Fiehn also received our 2009 Distinguished Scientist Award. Other speakers that we hosted throughout 2009 were, Dr. Ron Majors, Dr. Britt Burton-Freeman, Dr. Richard van Breeman, and Dr. Steven Wong. The topics that they covered included Metabolomics, Sample Preparation techniques for LC, LC-MS, Nutritional Science, Hyphenated LC-MS-MS, and Toxicology.
We have provided different and hopefully convenient locations for these presentations, with a very conscious effort in engaging and insuring that the food that we served @ these presentations was top notch. We have been complemented by many of our attendees on the quality of the food and the locations of these presentations. What was missing from many of these presentations? You! Our turnouts at these scheduled events were abysmal! Why, you might ask? We wish, as a group, to know the answers.
We instituted a Corporate Sponsorship Program in late 2008, and have been so appreciative of our Corporate Sponsors including Agilent, Perkin Elmer, Chata, Orochem, and Grace Davison. We are hoping that they will renew for 2010. But they alone are not going to keep this organization going! We need you, our committed members to renew your membership. You are the core, the heart of our organization! We need you to renew your membership and to attend as many of our meetings as you can for 2010 and beyond.
Our attendance at Pittcon 2009 in Chicago with our own CCDG booth was quite a surprise to many of our new and long term members They were happy to see that we were alive and well, and that we are still here! Yes, we are still here, and we are staying alive, but we are not thriving. Why, because we need you! We are dedicated to our goals, and our wanting and willing to be more flexible with our meetings, our subjects, listening to inputs from all corners of the greater Chicago area community Therefore we need your inputs, your membership dues, your willingness to come to a meeting once or twice a year. One thing that we will never changes is our motto and credo "Sharing in Knowledge"!
We are asking for all past members to renew your membership. The dues have not changed in 25 years; remaining at $35 for 1 year. We would however encourage that you renew for a 3 year period, paying a fee of $105.00 if possible, in hopes to help our declining revenue stream.
If you are not yet a member of the CCDG, please seriously consider the benefits that our organization can provide for you. We welcome your questions, your comments, your criticisms. We can only benefit as an organization from your involvement, your concern to further our continuance as an added value to our community of chemists and scientists.
So please join with your co-workers and let our events further your knowledge, experience, and education in the field of Chromatography and Mass Spectrometry.
Sincerely,
Mike Sloan, CCDG President
&
Leslie Chiappetti, CCDG Coordinator
P.S. We have also recently added Job Postings to our web site to provide an important service to those of us who are unemployed or under employed.
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