A Message from your RTB President
Hello RTB AALAS Members!
Is it really March already?!? I hope your February was full of great Tech Week memories, and you’re feeling ready to start a new year with some cool virtual programs with RTB AALAS!
In case you missed it, or the several hundred (it feels like) emails we sent out – our first ever Virtual RTB Awards Show went off without a hitch last month. We were flattered, and so appreciative, of our over 110 attendees at the live event during Tech Week. A huge thank you to our vendors for sponsoring over $2000 in Awards and $1600 in gift cards for our virtual ‘door prizes’!
Thanks also to those of you who took the time to submit nominations for your colleagues! Congratulations to our outstanding nominees and award winners. Your hard work really paid off this time! I’d like to challenge each of our winners to nominate someone next year! Let’s keep the recognition of our best and brightest going. If you haven’t had the chance, a link to the recorded show was also emailed to members after the event so you can check it out at your convenience. We are especially (not) proud of our blooper reel at the end… thanks for thinking to include this, and helping us embarrass ourselves Morgan! Last but not least, we introduced our new and returning Executive Board Members for 2021. Welcome to our newest addition, Andrea Murr, your 2021 Secretary, and thank you to all our returning Board members for renewing your volunteer commitment to keep RTB AALAS going strong!
In other news, our official RTB AALAS T-Shirts are being printed as I type this! Those of you who voted and gave us your shirt size should expect an email in the next couple of weeks with information on distribution at your institution. Congrats to our very own Julie Kent who submitted the winning design and won an Amazon Fire Tablet, and thank you to all those who submitted designs, it was great to have so many choices. We anticipate putting in an order for additional shirts for sale once we get this first round distributed. Stay tuned for more info.
Our first official event this year, after the Awards Show, is a virtual live interactive webinar from our friends at Bio-Serv titled, ‘What’s NEW at Bio-Serv AND some tips and tricks on Canine, Swine and Ferrets’ on March 23rd 2-3pm. Details and a flyer were sent to members’ emails and more info can be found on the RTB website. Even if you don’t work with these species, we thought it might be a nice break from the typical rodent focused programs.
We hope you enjoy this newsletter! If you have ideas for things you’d like to see in the future, please let us know. Shout out to Allison Geiner and Emily Butler for working so hard to organize it all, while making it as informational and fun as possible!
We’re looking forward to a full program of virtual events in 2021! We hope you’ll join us!
Emily Weston, MS, RLATG
2021 RTB AALAS President
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