Dear Geological Society of Washington Community, With our first meeting of the new year taking place at the Carnegie Earth and Planets Laboratory on Wednesday, January 29th, it is my distinct pleasure to write with some updates. As you may know too well, a new year brings with it a new administration. Thankfully, we have a competent team of Officers stewarding GSW in 2025 (details below). Additionally, I am excited to work with the Program Chair, Dr. Anne Pommier, to put together an exciting program for 2025, which is organized around themes that should be of broad interest to GSW members. The meeting calendar is posted on our website, www.gswweb.org<http://www.gswweb.org/> and pasted below. I am happy to share some good news: Our membership numbers are on an upward trend, which I attribute in large part to the heroic efforts of last year’s leadership, and former President Dan Doctor, in particular. However, we still have a ways to go to rebound to our pre-pandemic numbers. Therefore, if you haven’t already, please renew your GSW membership by going to http://gsw.minsocam.org/ If you are unsure of whether your membership has expired, please do not hesitate to reach out directly to me. Given all the confusion with membership records over the past few years, I too lost track of my renewals, so I will not judge! If you have deliberately decided not to renew your membership, I ask you to reconsider. GSW holds space for our broad geological, environmental, and planetary science community across the DMV area to meet, exchange ideas, socialize, and celebrate scientific research and discovery. I want to particularly encourage early career colleagues to join the Society – at a bargain price of $25/yr. For our early career members, networking enabled by GSW meetings is priceless. I say that from experience: I joined GSW eleven years ago and have benefited from professional interactions and scientific collaborations with other GSW members. Additionally, I am happy to announce that we will have more hybrid meetings this year, including the one on January 29th, as a way of giving our non-DMV members a way to participate and benefit from their membership. We continue to work with the Mineralogical Society of America to ensure timely and accurate communication. Please accept my apologies for the e-mail that was mistakenly sent out right before Christmas, during a system test by a new employee. As alarming as the e-mail was, I take solace in the fact that no personal information was collected nor compromised as a result. This year, we intend to move to a more secure membership management system using which each member can establish an individual account and directly manage their own access to membership. I hope to see lots of you at Carnegie on Wednesday. There will be plenty of parking. Thanks to Mike Walter for making the space available to us! --Ved Vedran Lekic 2025 President of GSW Prof. of Geology University of Maryland, College Park 2025 GSW Officers: 1st Vice President – Michael Ackerson (Smithsonian), 2nd Vice President – Michael Walter (Carnegie EPL), Past President – Dan Doctor (USGS), Treasurer – Andy Campbell (NRC, retired), Meeting Secretary – Jessica Bersson (Smithsonian), Council Secretary – Beth Doyle (NOVA Community College), Councilors – Linda Rowan (CRS), Ross Salerno (USGS), David Vanko (Towsen Univ., retired), Pat Carr (Brooking Legislative Fellow, U.S. Congress), Mark Tyra (NIST) and Anne Pommier (Carnegie EPL). P.S. 2025 Spring meetings: Jan. 29 (Carnegie EPL), Feb. 12, Mar. 5, Apr. 9 (Cosmos Club), Apr. 30 (Carnegie EPL), May 14, Sept. 10, Oct. 1, Oct. 29 (Cosmos Club), Nov. 12 (Carnegie EPL). The Annual Meeting will be held on Dec. 3 (or Dec. 10).