Please see the below message from CTA President, Dr. Jon Lohse:
Dear Members,
It is with deep regret but an appreciation for the importance of keeping our members and community safe from unnecessary exposure to the Coronavirus that the spring 2020 meeting (April 17) has been cancelled. This includes our morning business meeting, as well as the afternoon session featuring USACE training, and the later-afternoon social. Most local governments are urging people not to gather in large groups, and it simply doesn't make sense for us to try and conduct the meeting as planned. I am in touch with Derek Hamilton about the Thursday Bayesian training and will have an update about that as soon as one is available, so for the present time, this notice applies only to all events scheduled for April 17.
We are working on plans to have an on-line meeting in place of the regularly scheduled event, and our hopes are to have these details worked out in time to have the meeting in the same Friday morning time slot. The difference is that those of you who attend can do so from your computers (home or office) rather than meeting in person.
My goal will be for our on-line meeting to include as much of our expected agenda as possible. This will include officer, agency, and committee reports, or those that can be arranged, as well as some items for vote. Items that need to be voted on will include the 2021 budget, new officers, a by-law change for curation, and (perhaps) some revised Standards and Guidelines documents. We are working with our Communications Committee to arrange details for just how the on-line voting will work, so please look for those details soon. It is likely that this will include having to sign into the Members Only section and cast a one-time vote per issue. For officers, we typically open the election to nominations from the floor; we'll endeavor to make this available but these will need to be submitted early on, for obvious reasons.
I realize this is far from our ordinary experience, and I appreciate your patience and understanding as we work through the details. Our goal will be to make this as normal and convenient as possible for the majority of our members, but we understand that the shift to an on-line platform for this meeting may result in some people not being able to attend or participate as they otherwise would. And of course, we'll all miss the opportunity to see and catch up with our friends and colleagues. Please be on the lookout for more details soon about what this will look like and how it will work. If you're working on a submission for the newsletter (deadline is March 27), please keep to that schedule.
Let me know if anyone has any questions or concerns. More information will be available soon.
Yours sincerely,
Jon Lohse
