China Congress Well Attended

The Congress venue of the Empark Grand Hotel was well appointed and fit the size of the group very well. Our hosts outdid themselves by erecting a large billboard banner behind the stage.

One of the destinations of the field visits was the Chinese Research Institute, near Chongqing. Theis group photo highlighted the great group of student volunteers in the front that were so much help for the foreign attendees.

The Demonstration Nursery we visited is also a commercial operation that is part of the modernization effort going on in nurseries all over China. CRI has spawned 44 modern nurseries in the last five year that have spread through all citrus growing areas in southern China.

China Congress a Success!

The 8th Congress of the International Society of Citrus Nurserymen was a great success! Our Chinese hosts provided a fine venue and did a wonderful job organizing the Congress. 151 attendees were recorded and 53 attendees paid the $100 membership fee to become ISCN Members for the next period of membership until the next Congress in Argentina in June 2011.
Hassan Marei of Egypt passed the President's mantle off to Francisco Llatser of Spain and Gary Eyles of Australia was unanimously elected to the post of President-elect. Roger Smith agreed to stay on as Secretary and agreed to take on the responsibilities of Treasure as well. The Exectuive Board's goals for the "between Congress period" is to:

1. Invest in a new web site that has e-commerce capability that will allow membership fees to be paid on the web site. The goal is to have the site in English initially, but to develop a means to provide the site Spanish, Portugese and possibly Chinese if the technical challenges can be overcome.

2. Solidify the Area Representatives in all participating countries.

3. Improve organization communication between congresses.

4. Continue to improve the new Congress Manual ffrom lessons learned from the China Congress. The desire to add interactive worksops to the format will be pursued.

ISCN has survived another Congress cycle and it is the executive board's goal to offer the opportunity for it to thrive as we set our sites on Argentina in 2011.