You have probably never heard of our 'organisation' before. ANdiNA (http://www.andinabbar.weebly.com) is a virtual society, an informal network that works to ensure that applied ecological research is thoroughly justified, forward-looking and of the highest standard. Particular aims are to inject good-humoured critical debate into science where it is currently lacking - communicating the outcomes via the scientific press - and to foster international dialogue, collaboration and mentoring. A priority is to help early-career scientists to engage in a substantive way with their international peers.
So far, 82 people from 18 countries have participated in our workshops and are now considered to be "members". As a virtual society with no formal structures, we have the flexibility to address issues and to fill gaps that formal organisations miss. We can put our efforts into actions and dialogue rather than internal organisation and committee meetings. However, as we have no membership fees and do not make profits from running large conferences, the only resource we can call upon is the time and goodwill of colleagues and the occasional gifts from sponsors and societies.
The name "ANdiNa" has nothing directly to do with the Andes range of mountains: it was merely the name of the restaurant where our group was born. The Andina restaurant in Portland, Oregon. A group of like-minded colleagues and friends, having a great time over dinner and wine, but disappointed yet again with the content of the conference we were attending. Disappointed once more by the complete lack of dialogue at the conference, where important topics, challenges, directions and contentious issues could be argued. Why had we travelled around the world to listen to the minutiae of single pieces of work? After that, Bruce Maxwell (Montana State University) and Roger Cousens (The University of Melbourne) decided to do something about it! They hooked up with Mike Williams, an innovative facilitator with an environmental science background from Sydney, and organised the first of what have now become regular workshops. For each meeting we canvass ideas for topics and locations, then put together the people we need to make it happen. (The more astute among you will have noticed that the capitalised letters in our name keep changing! Just a little reminder that our aim is not to get into one fixed way of doing things, but to be constantly changing, innovating and questioning the status quo.)
So far, 82 people from 18 countries have participated in our workshops and are now considered to be "members". As a virtual society with no formal structures, we have the flexibility to address issues and to fill gaps that formal organisations miss. We can put our efforts into actions and dialogue rather than internal organisation and committee meetings. However, as we have no membership fees and do not make profits from running large conferences, the only resource we can call upon is the time and goodwill of colleagues and the occasional gifts from sponsors and societies.
The name "ANdiNa" has nothing directly to do with the Andes range of mountains: it was merely the name of the restaurant where our group was born. The Andina restaurant in Portland, Oregon. A group of like-minded colleagues and friends, having a great time over dinner and wine, but disappointed yet again with the content of the conference we were attending. Disappointed once more by the complete lack of dialogue at the conference, where important topics, challenges, directions and contentious issues could be argued. Why had we travelled around the world to listen to the minutiae of single pieces of work? After that, Bruce Maxwell (Montana State University) and Roger Cousens (The University of Melbourne) decided to do something about it! They hooked up with Mike Williams, an innovative facilitator with an environmental science background from Sydney, and organised the first of what have now become regular workshops. For each meeting we canvass ideas for topics and locations, then put together the people we need to make it happen. (The more astute among you will have noticed that the capitalised letters in our name keep changing! Just a little reminder that our aim is not to get into one fixed way of doing things, but to be constantly changing, innovating and questioning the status quo.)