34 In October, the chapter hosted a meeting at Feed and Table Tavern in Chattanooga, TN, with 36 attendees. Dr. Abigail Casey, Applied Technology Manager, Evonik Corporation, presented her talk “The Needs and Care of Melanin Rich Skin Types – A point to be Addressed by Inclusivity Trends for Cosmetics.” Door Prizes were presented after Dr. Casey’s presentation. After the meeting, Colonial Chemical hosted an event at Valkyrie Axe Throwing, where members had a chance to show off their skills. The final meeting of 2021 was our Installation of the 2022 Officers, at Seasons 52 Restaurant in Memphis, TN. Nineteen members enjoyed the State of the Society presentation by Michelle Hines, 2022 SCC National President, and installation and introduction of our 2022 Southeast Chapter Officers.

35 Southwest The start of 2021 began much like the majority of 2020, virtually. Sadly, virtual meetings are far from the networking and social aspect the Society generally provides. It certainly brings new avenues to the educational aspect of our community, which hopefully we can continue to explore, but it lacks connectedness. In a virtual world, this is not the easiest to accomplish, so we worked to try a few new things this year as the country slowly started to open back up. Our first trial into bringing connection was during February’s monthly meeting, our first virtual Game Night! The southwest chapter members separated into teams and competed for prizes through challenges and trivia. We all had a blast, and greatly enjoyed seeing one another in a new way for the first time in over a year. Through the first half of 2021, we remained virtual, and taking advantage of the platform invited speakers from all over the US, sharing their presentations nationally. While we had a lot of great speakers and plan to continue to have the occasional virtual educational meetings, we were very ready to get back to seeing one another in person, and were super excited to host a summer Meat & Great in August. To bring in a little chemistry fun, we held the social event at Messina Hof Winery, where chapter members learned about how the various types of wine were made and their food pairing of choice! During September, we generally host our bi-annual Educational Seminar, but with the COVID cases still prevalent we were still skeptical to host a larger gathering. With that, we chose to continue our virtual education, holding an Educational Month in which we had a new speaker each week of September. The educational series was themed “Changing With Change”, and held topics ranging from scale up processing, clean in 2021, and finding white space in product innovation. The latter of which was so popular she held the talk twice! A true thank you to all of our speakers, both for the series and for the entirety of 2021. In October, to continue with the industry opening back towards in person events and working to highlight connectedness and adaptation, the next event held was a mini supplier’s day located at a local brewery, a fun Trunk-or-Treat for the Halloween spirit. Chapter members were able to peruse supplier goodies, reconnect, and, for a little fun, learn how to brew beer! It was a great adaptation, allowing for a small gathering to reconnect and have a little fun! Following suit from 2020, we then held our annual golf event in November. The weather had turned out nice from the previous year, so we thought best to keep the new tradition. The event, like always, was highly anticipated and great fun! It was a true pleasure to continue to see the Chapter reconnect after all of the time that had passed in separation.