From the President's Desk Dec'05

As this newsletter (Volume 20, Number 4) goes to the printer, most of NSW is enjoying at least a good average spring, with some areas boasting “the best for 10 years”! I trust all the Grassland members (and others too!) are experiencing good pasture, livestock and crop prospects.

The Society is continuing to make progress in a number of areas. We are currently encouraging our sponsors from last year to once again support our efforts to improve the transfer of sound technology among all stakeholders in our agricultural industries. Letters to current and new sponsors have been sent and we are awaiting replies. If any of our current sponsors have yet to respond to our letter, we would very much appreciate your reply. Sponsorship benefits have been expanded on previous years and with a growing membership, it represents a sound investment as well as supplying the vital support that the Society needs.

Next year’s conference will be held at Wagga Wagga. Already, a hard working committee is putting together a program that is shaping up as both challenging and very informative. As we have not met at Wagga for some years, this will provide an excellent opportunity to highlight developments in agricultural research and farm practice from the Southern area of the state. A summary of the draft program will appear in the next newsletter.

I am keen to hear from members whether there would be sufficient interest in participating in a study tour - possibly to New Zealand next year. The Society would be able to coordinate such an activity, provided there are adequate numbers. Please contact me or another committee member or e-mail our secretary – secretary@grasslandnsw.com.au.

Cheers,

Mick Duncan
President

(Please note that last years newsletters will be loaded on to the main website as soon as possible - Website Team)

Seasons Greetings to all Members

The Grassland Society would like to take this opportunity to wish all our members a very merry Christmas and a happy, healthy & prosperous New Year. After a very long period of drought, it looks like the season is finally improving for many areas in the State so here's hoping for a much easier time in 2006. If you have been unlucky enough to miss out on the rain so far, hopefully the right amount will come your way very soon.

cheers for now,
Grassland Society of NSW - Website team.

News Update

Just a quick reminder to all members that if you are planning to submit an article/poster in next years Conference, now is the time to get writing. More information on the 2006 NSW Grassland Society Conference will be posted soon.

Regular visitors to the main website may have noticed a new feature on the News/Events page which is an automatically updating news feed of articles from this blog. This is done so that we can more efficiently communicate with our members on news and events of interest. Anyone who may wish to publish an event, field day, short course, etc is encouraged to use the blog in this way. Just contact the web team if you would like to use this service - we can do the post for you or it can be "self serve". Grassland Society committee members are able to login and create articles - it only takes a few minutes and is very easy so contact us if you would like login details (email admin@grasslandnsw.com.au).

Very pleasing to see such good rain over the state at last - hopefully you are getting the right amount wherever you are. Always very busy at this time of year but we hope to publish more content on the main website as soon as possible so we can make it a useful resource for anyone interested in grassland management. We welcome your feedback so drop us a line if you have any suggestions or feedback.

cheers for now from the web design team.