Introduction

EFI 2023 Unconference Applications Open	Date: June 21-23, 2023 Location: NEON Headquarters, Boulder, CO Apply by February 1 at: https://bit.ly/efi-2023-unconference The goal of the 2023 Unconference is for participants to work together on products such as developing forecasts, automating forecasts, developing teaching materials/tutorials, refining or creating software tools, analyzing forecasts for a manuscript, developing visualizations, or working on other activities proposed by the participants. Details on the EFi 2023 Unconference webpage.
Save the Date!EFI 2024 Conference	Date: June 4-6, 2024 Location: Finnish Meteorological Institute, Helsinki, Finland This 3-day community-wide EFI meeting aims at bringing together scientists, agencies, industry, and stakeholders to build a community of practice and to advance research, applications, and collaboration around near-term (subdaily to decadal) ecological forecasts. Find more details and updates on the EFI 2024 Conference webpage.
	EFI and the ESA Statistical Ecology Section are hosting the second round of the Statistical Methods Virtual Webinar Series. Speakers present a statistical method or tool followed by an overview of R code used with that method and what to be aware of with those R packages. Upcoming webinars and recordings and R resources from previous webinars in this series are available on the webinar webpage. On Monday, Feb 6 at noon US eastern Marie-Josée Fortin from the University of Toronto will present on Spatial Modeling in Ecology. Register to attend here: https://bit.ly/3BUh3wl
Opportunity to Get Involved! EFI Distributed Leadership & Governance Committee	The Distributed Leadership & Governance committee helps EFI to delegate tasks, distribute leadership across the organization, and cultivate new leaders to promote open, clear, and consistent communication with the EFI membership about what EFI is doing. EFI is seeking expressions of interest from individuals from a range of backgrounds and career stages who are interested in contributing as stewards of change to the governance and operational needs of EFI. The Distributed Leadership Committee will be comprised of 3-4 individuals and will provide opportunities for mentorship and leadership within EFI. Additional details about the Distributed Leadership Committee can be found on page 17 of the Strategic Plan. Interested individuals can fill out this form to provide a short description (200-300 words) of your interest in participating on the committee and the skills and viewpoints you will bring to the committee. The EFI Steering Committee will review expressions of interest during their June call and will follow up after that.
	The EFI-NEON Research Coordination Network is an NSF-funded grant to create a community of practice that builds capacity for ecological forecasting by leveraging NEON data products. The first round of the NEON Ecological Forecast Challenge begins in 2021. The Challenge revolves around five theme areas that span aquatic and terrestrial systems, and population, community, and ecosystem processes across a broad range of ecoregions that uses data collected by NEON.
	About: Mission Statement, Shared Values & Principles, Member Profiles and Forecasting Projects
	Working Groups Organized Around Seven Cross-Cutting Themes: Theory; Statistical Methods & Tools; Cyberinfrastructure; Education; Diversity, Equity & Inclusion; Translation and Actionable Science; Standards for Forecast Output and Metadata
	Resources: Publications, Educational and Multimedia Resources, Videos
	Stay Connected: Our Listserv shares high-level announcements, our Blog highlights forecasting activities going on, you can follow us on Twitter @ecoforecast, or you can request to join our community of forecasters on Slack (send request to eco4cast.initiative@gmail.com)