Greetings Upper Valley birders:

With this week's Vermont Rare Bird Alert, you'll notice our new banner.  
The former Conservation Biology group at VINS is now fully up and 
running as the Vermont Center for Ecostudies (VCE).  Our separation from 
VINS became complete at 5 pm on 28 September.  We couldn't be more 
excited or optimistic about our future, and we look forward to 
continuing collaborations with many of you on citizen science projects 
in Vermont and beyond.

Yes, we changed our name from the Institute of Conservation Ecology.  
The acronym ICE proved too "cold" and apparently suggestive that we work 
primarily in polar regions or on climate change.  We feel that this new 
name suits us well, and it is now official.  We're housed in a great 
office space at 20 Palmer Court on the Hartford-Norwich town line.  Our 
physical address is White River Junction, our mailing address (below) 
Norwich.  Our web site is taking shape.  We encourage any of you to come 
by for a visit. We'll have an open house or two later in October.  Over 
time, we'll host some meetings, lecture series, and other events here.

In the short term, you won't notice much change about the way we 
operate.  We are maintaining the slate of projects we coordinated at 
VINS, although looking to expand and diversify our overall program.  
Birds will definitely continue to be our focus, but not an exclusive 
one.  We especially hope to strengthen our connection to you, the VT-NH 
birding community.  You're the backbone of citizen science projects in 
both states, and we couldn't do our work without you.

Thanks for the support and encouragement many of you have offered during 
our transition from VINS to VCE.

Chris

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