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After carefully considering the evolving situation with the COVID-19 virus and in following advice from public health agencies within Alberta and nationally, the CGU Executive has decided that the Banff meeting is not going to be able to proceed this year.

I am announcing now, however, that we have already booked next year’s meeting to take place in Banff, with more or less the same programming, venue and events as were planned for this year. Please mark your calendars for May 2nd through the 5th, 2021 at the Banff Park Lodge.

We are disappointed to not be able to meet in person to share our science with one another. A separate email will be sent to the CGU membership soon to officially announce the winners of union-level awards. We also recognize that with IUGG replacing our CGU meeting last year, and the CGU annual meeting being cancelled this year, it will be the second year in a row that no best presentation awards or best poster awards are presented to our student members. The CGU Executive is currently evaluating different options through which CGU student members could still present their research – potentially via an online conference – and compete for oral presentation and poster awards. Details will follow in the next few weeks.

Thankfully, we had delayed the opening of our registration system. We will reimburse all abstract submission fees through your original method of payment. We will process refunds as quickly as possible, but please be patient as they may take a few weeks to complete. We would recommend that you cancel any travel arrangements you have made at your earliest convenience. Note that we have confirmed with the Banff Park Lodge that all hotel reservations made through the CGU block have been cancelled automatically.

Finally, I would like to recognize that a lot of people had contributed significantly to this year’s meeting already. The entire CGU Executive team and Section Executives have been highly involved, but none more so than Julian Lowman (CGU VP and lead organizer of the meeting). A significant amount of work had already been completed for awards adjudication by a large number of reviewers and led by our Award Chair, Genevieve Ali. Robin Gemer from CanHost, our conference organizer, has been amazing and I have been extremely grateful for all the hard work already completed by our Local Organizing Committee Co-Chairs, Scott Ketcheson and Felix Nwaishi. Both John Pomeroy and Robert Sandford had prepared an amazing conference field trip and public lecture.

Thank you all for your patience in these trying times. Please do feel free to contact us through info@cgu-ugc.ca for any feedback you may have. We will be in touch soon.

Sincerely,

Carl Mitchell
President, CGU