11th Biennial symposium (Connecticut Invasive Plant Working Group)

The Connecticut Invasive Plant Working Group (CIPWG) is currently planning our 11^th biennial symposium, which will be held virtually on November 3, 2022. In past years, your organization was a supporting partner for the symposium. Will your organization again be willing to partner for the 2022 CIWPG symposium?  

As a supporting partner for the CIPWG symposium, we ask for your assistance in promoting the event, through websites, social media, emails, or newsletters. There is no cost to be a supporting partner for CIPWG’s biennial invasive plant symposium. In return, we will list your organization as a supporting partner on the CIPWG Symposium webpage, including a link to your website if desired. Our Symposium Booklet of Abstracts, Bios, and Contact Information will also include your organization’s name.

Please reply electronically asap to Alyssa Siegel-Miles (alyssa.siegel-miles@uconn.edu) if you would like to be a supporting partner for the 2022 CIPWG symposium and include an image of your association’s logo. We will then send additional information that you may use for publicity. Please let us know if the publicity information should go to someone other than you. 

Past symposia have always been well attended, both in person and virtually. As COVID-19 continues to limit the ability of outside groups to use UConn facilities, this year’s symposium will again be virtual. Feedback from the 2020 symposium reinforced the positive aspects of a virtual program: available to more people from a wider geographic area, reduction in travel time, and the opportunity for those who have registered for the symposium to re-listen to the seminars after the program has completed. 

The symposium is beneficial to people from a diverse array of backgrounds, including property owners, community volunteers, master gardeners, land care and natural resource professionals, landscape architects, members of conservation organizations, and town committee members. The program will be similar to preceding years, with some sessions directed to all attendees and other sessions in concurrent breakouts. Attendees will choose two Breakout Sessions to view during the event. (As mentioned, the entire recording, including all sessions, will be available for post-event watching for all registered attendees.) Pesticide Recertification Credits and Continuing Education Credits (CEUs) for multiple organizations will be available.

The theme of the 2022 CIPWG Symposium is Strategies for Managing Invasive Plants: Assess, Remove, Replace, and Restore. The symposium will feature keynote speaker Bernd Blossey, Cornell University, and a general session with Bryan Connolly (ECSU) followed by six breakout sessions:

• Assessing the Land: Case studies on What Works
• What’s Working Around the State
• Managing in your Backyard: Failures and Successes
• Limitations Legal and Practical
• Aquatic Concerns
• Replacement and Restoration: Design; Propagating and Sourcing Native Seed

The full program and a link to online registration will soon be available on the CIPWG website at: cipwg.uconn.edu/2022-symposium.

Thank you for your consideration of this request.  If you have questions, please contact alyssa.siegel-miles@uconn.edu. 

Sincerely,

Rose Hiskes, Victoria Wallace, and Emmett Varricchio

CIPWG Co-Chairs