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Conference Meeting Report
Meeting Report from the 2009 Conference
Every year the Guild of Annual Science Illustrators holds its annual membership meeting at the Annual Conference. Following are the notes from the 2009 membership meeting. We will post the notes from the 2010 membership meeting after the 2010 conference has wrapped up.
By the time you receive this the holidays will be fast approaching, and so will the end of fiscal year 2009. I know these haven’t been the best of times financially, but if you need to get a few more deductions under your tax return belt, a donation to Friends Of The Guild (FOG) is a great way to help yourself and the Guild, too. Any amount, no matter how small or large, will be greatly appreciated. Your donations help support the Guild General Fund and will help keep the Guild financially sound; and, of course, donations are welcome any time of the year.
ORAL HISTORY PROJECT
A huge bouquet of roses goes out to GNSI members Diane T Sands and Sara Taliaferro for their ongoing efforts to interview our “seasoned veteran” members who have a wealth of information and anecdotes about early Guild history. Diane is the Guild Archivist and maintains Guild documents and memorabilia, a valuable resource in itself; but personal memories and reflections don’t often show up in official documents. Having these memories preserved is a wonderful legacy for our future. If you have stories and memories of earlier Guild events and people, or if you know someone in your area, chapter or group that might have some interesting bits to add to the GNSI Oral History collection, please contact Sara (sara@happybeetle.com) or Diane (gnsi.ca@gmail.com) for information on how to pass these memories along.
LEGACY PROJECT
On a somewhat similar note, GNSI member and past president Gretchen Halpert has been working on securing a suitable location for a collection of life work donated by GNSI members as part of their estates. Most of us have stacks of finished work, sketches, research, writings and published pieces that we have accumulated over the course of our lives and careers; I would guess that most of us do NOT have relatives who would be thrilled to have everything, or would have a place to store it properly, or who would have any way to make it available to other scientific illustrators. The GNSI Legacy Project will be an ideal venue for such a collection of life work, and a valuable resource for future illustrators. We will keep you informed as this project develops. If you would like more information or have thoughts or information you would like to share, please contact me at guthdesign@comcast.net or Gretchen at gretchen.halpert@gmail.com.
NEWSLETTER & WEB SITE UPGRADES
Several GNSI volunteers are working hard on upgrading both our newsletter and website. We have always relied on contributions from our members for relevant ideas, topics, and information to publish in the newsletter, and we encourage anyone with an interesting technique to discuss or work-related experience to share to send in your topic abstract. We’d especially love to see articles based on presentations or workshops that you have conducted; or perhaps you’ve had an interesting experience setting up a show or working with a gallery. Any topic that may be informative to the GNSI membership is welcome. Besides helping to inform our members, remember that a published article looks good in your CV! Have a good Photoshop tip to share or a unique way to clean or store your brushes? Have you finally located a source for that wonderful paper you love to use but could never find? We encourage you to submit a Quick Tip for the newsletter (and maybe the web site, too?), on traditional or digital techniques and media, business, career or education topics. Sometimes one little idea can be just the thing to make someone else’s day a little easier. Please contact our newsletter editor, Barbara Gleason, if you have a contribution: gnsi@bgleasondesign.com. If you think your article will be lengthy, Barbara requests that you contact her before sending the full text, or prepare a brief abstract so she can let you know the space available and the publishing schedule. We are also working to upgrade the web site, to make it much more functional and interactive. Putting the Membership Directory online was a great first step, saving the GNSI money and making the information available in a form most of us can use and store more efficiently. Remember that general information about the GNSI is currently available at www.gnsi.org. Stay tuned for further improvements.
WE VALUE YOUR INPUT!
Please don’t hesitate to send us—any Board member or your chapter or group president—your ideas, comments, even criticisms (!), on the Guild. We value your input on how the GNSI is working—or not working—for you, and want to hear from you.
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