How did your Local Section cope with COVID?

[ArleneGarrison]

The Senior Chemists Committee is looking for examples of ways that local sections, and specifically senior chemist sub-groups in local sections, have handled the pandemic. Did you meet by Zoom? Arrange socially distant picnics? Postpone or cancel activites?

When are you restarting in-person gatherings? Are you planning to use Zoom to provide access for those who prefer remote access?

Reply with your stories - this may become an article for the Senior Chemists Newsletter!

[ArleneGarrison]

The East Tennessee Local Section held the annual Lind Lecture as a hybrid meeting. The Awardee did not need to travel to receive the award. Attendance was significantly higher than a typical year. For future events, we expect to be hybrid. In-person meetings are being planned for this fall.

[RobertYokley · Accepted solution]

Hello,

The Senior Chemists Group (SCG) of the Central North Carolina local section conducted its last in-person meeting on March 9, 2020. The first Zoom meeting was conducted in July 2020 (after cancelling the in-person May meeting) and have been held every other month to the present. Our first in-person meeting since March 2020 will take place July 26, 2021 unless the pandemic suddenly worsens. Many of our members adapted to the virtual format relatively quickly and with each passing month, more and more members became conversant with the Zoom technology. The first SCG Zoom meetings required the presence of our local section Chair to serve as host because they controlled our only Zoom license (via ACS). However, in January 2021, the SCG purchased a Zoom license to conduct its meetings. I suspect we will continue to use Zoom in the future for some activities but it cannot replace the stronger connections, effectiveness, and social interactions of in-person meetings. Of course, we are a smaller local section in numbers of ACS members and geographical size (5 counties) so we do not face the same problems with in-person meetings as those local sections that cover much larger areas.

[ArleneGarrison]

Thanks, Robert!

[lynnhartshorn · Accepted solution]

The Minnesota Section was occupied with the organisation of the Great Lakes Regional meeting, which was held virtually in June, and was succesful. The section did not hold other meetings during the summer.

However the MNACS Senior Chemists met monthly using Zoom, in February, March, April, May  and June. The meeting was advertised as a Coffee Morning with discussion,  Each meeting consisted of a short social chat followed by a discussion that had been advertised previously. The discussion topic, which in some cases was an article , had been emailed to the group to give them time to look at it.Discussions included articles from C &E news, or articles suggested by members that were emailed to everyone who signed up. For example one article was about the development of the vaccines, and how this had been done so quickly, and the differences between the different vaccines . The June meeting included a Bingo game played for prizes.

The July meeting is planned as a "Bring your own Lunch" picnic in a local park, where a picnic shelter has been rented.

Lynn Hartshorn, MNACS Senior Group Coordinator