Dear BERGers,
It has been brought to the BERG organisers' attentions that the link to the Spring
2020 schedule was only viewable by the owners/creators of the document. A classic
kerfuffle, indeed. This has been fixed!
Special thanks to the people who reached out about this issue: Elizabeth Renner, Jade
Hooper, Kirsten Blakey, Tzu-Yun Lin, and any others we might have missed!
The new link is:
https://stir.box.com/s/2nz26sgrlkwmjl72a5oz7j8uuo1qmdd7
Please do take the time to sign up for talks this semester, by viewing the available dates
and e-mailing organisers Gema Martin-Ordas and Sarah Kraemer with your chosen slot and the
title of your talk.
gema.martin-ordas(a)stir.ac.uk
s.b.kraemer(a)stir.ac.uk
Urge a colleague with relevant research interests to sign-up! We welcome suggestions for
speakers as well.
(Special thanks to David Pritchard for some fantastic suggestions for speakers who are
traveling through Scotland!)
We also welcome anyone with interesting news, ideas, or opportunities outside of BERG
meetings to forward those along! A great example was Zsuzsa Lugosi making plans for a
social BERG movie night soon. That is the spirit!
This e-mail is also a reminder that today's BERG meeting is dedicated to the plight of
the Koalas and humans affected by the recent/current bushfires in Australia. BERG members
are welcome to read the article(s) attached in the previous update e-mail and discuss them
over snacks at 5:30pm today in the Psychology common room.
While we are on the topic,
The department's own Sarah Vick took the theme of this week's discussion to heart,
and reached out to Kris Descovich – an Australian former post doc in Animal Welfare at
Stirling, and currently a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the University of Queensland –
to see if she could suggest what BERG folk could do to help support those dealing with the
wildfires.
This is the message she had for all of us:
"That is so kind of you all to be thinking of us and great that the fires are getting
coverage internationally. We had a terrible start to our fire season up here but on the
whole have been pretty lucky, but down in some of the southern states the damage is really
at a level that is hard to comprehend. There are quite a few places that are collecting
and organising donations. New South Wales has had a huge influx of donations through
celebrity support, so it would be better to direct donations to Victoria I think. The two
that I believe would be best are the Country Fire Authority
(
www.cfa.vic.gov.au/donate1<http://www.cfa.vic.gov.au/donate1>) and Wildlife
Victoria (
www.wildlifevictoria.org.au<http://www.wildlifevictoria.org.au/>)/>). Because
these are bushfires and not house fires they are largely being tackled by the rural fire
brigades (e.g. the CFA) which are pretty much made up of all volunteers. Similarly, with
the wildlife rescue and care as these are also almost entirely volunteer run, and carers
are usually spending their own money to buy everything they need like milk, blankets,
petrol. I think any support will go a long way.
Thanks again for thinking of us all, and all of the people and wildlife affected!
Please say hi to all of the old BERG’ers for me. ☺
Kris"
BERG members are able to click on the links if they feel empowered to donate to Dr.
Descovich's two suggested organisations.
One final note: This semester we will be in special need of volunteers to introduce weekly
speakers, take on the task of setting up the snack table, and clear up everything
afterwards. This is due to organiser-Sarah's fluctuating research schedule at Living
Links, and organiser-Gema's long commute to/from England. We will create a sign-up
document for this duty, and disseminate that shortly.
This week, Kristine Gandia has kindly volunteered!
If anything, the theme of this e-mail was "The Who's Who of Who e-mails BERG
coordinators about Who and What!" Do you want to see your name in bold?
E-mail us!
And let's have a high-Koalaty meeting later today, shall we?
🐨
Sarah and Gema
Sarah B. Kraemer
PhD Student | Department of Psychology
Behaviour and Evolution Research Group
[BERG<https://www.stir.ac.uk/about/faculties/natural-sciences/our-research/research-groups/behaviour-and-evolution-research-group/>]
Scottish Primate Research Group
[
SPRG<http://living-links.org/about/scottish-primate-research-group/>]
University of Stirling, UK
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