Mini-Symposium in Landhaus Rothenberge

Finally, our first “post”-Corona Mini-Symposium took place at the end of July in Landhaus Rothenberge, the splendid seminar house of our university just about 40 km North of Münster. Unfortunately, as we are in the middle of summer vacation time, not all members of the group were able to participate, but most did. Margareta Hellmann and Martin Bonin had set up well-balanced programme, with equally important and equally well-organised scientific sessions and social events. We started with an overview of past, present and future activities of the group given by Prof. Bruno Moerschbacher, followed by the progress reports of our current two BSc candidates. In four poster sessions, everyone else was presenting their results and ideas, deeply discussing them with everyone else visiting the posters in four audience groups. We are already used to excellent posters, but this year’s selection might have topped them all. Not surprisingly, the voting for the poster prizes was difficult – in the end, it went to Katharina Eickelpasch’s poster on the use of chitosans to protect plants from environmental stress. In between, we enjoyed different games, a barbecue, cocktails... We were all happy that after the long Corona desert, we have finally been able to interact again more closely. And the success of our mini-symposium was strongly supported by the royal setting of Rothenberge. We have never before discussed our projects while sitting on golden chairs!