October 10th is World Porridge Day. This was set up by the organizers of the Golden Spurtle World Porridge Championships in 2009 as a way to support Mary’s Meals, a charity devoted to providing free meals to children in their schools all over the world.

The Golden Spurtle competition itself always takes place at around the same time, and this year's winners are Lisa Williams from England and Chris Young from Scotland. Chris’s speciality recipe for "Porridge noodles two ways with scallops and caramelised figs" looks amazing!

This is also Thanksgiving weekend in Canada, and I changed things up this year by roasting a spatchcocked turkey on a bed of chopped vegetables with some rolled oats and mincemeat (preserved fruit) mixed in! Perhaps I will add that to the "Recipes" section sometime....

One thing many of us are thankful for is the security of employment and the ability to do interesting work. For those of you looking for work, here are five job opportunities:

• Luke, Finland: Research professor in plant genomics (deadline: October 14th)
• Julius Kühn-Institut, Germany: Research Associate (deadline: October 19th)
• University of Illinois, USA: Research Specialist, Small Grains – Crop Sciences (deadline: November 3rd)
• USDA-ARS, Aberdeen, Idaho: Research Geneticist/Research Plant Pathologist (deadline: November 7th)
• General Mills, Minnesota, USA: Scientist II - Agriculture Solution Team (Remote Eligible) (deadline: not specified)

October 10th is also the Field Day for the International Oat Conference. I’m very sorry to have to miss being there in person. If you’re tweeting about the conference, please use the hashtag #OAT2022 and/or tag me at @OatNewsletter. If you’re taking any photos, please consider sharing them with me (oatnewsletter@gmail.com) for upload to the newsletter's Image Gallery.

I will be joining the conference virtually, and will speak about the newsletter and the community's other communication platforms on Thursday, just before the Business Meeting (take a look at my QTL poster, too...). You can find a description of the different platforms here. The results of the survey that was held recently and links to the "Speaking of Oats..." webinar discussing the results can be found in the "Community News" section.

Our next "Speaking of Oats..." webinar will feature Matthias Herrmann, et al. discussing "CROPDIVA and FUGE - two multiple-area research projects on oats in Europe". That webinar will be held on Thursday, November 17th, from 11:00 am – 12:30 pm EST (UTC -5). Please note that this webinar will be half an hour longer than normal! Registration is now open.

The CROPDIVA and FUGE projects both have multiple components, including breeding for resistance to drought and disease. For all of you doing similar work, please note that Gracia Montilla-Bascon and Julio Isidro Sánchez are guest editors of a special issue of the MDPI journal "Plants" called "Oat Resistance Breeding". The deadline for submissions is March 10th, 2023.

I hope everyone at the International Oat Conference this week has a wonderful time, and here's wishing all of my fellow Canadians a Happy Thanksgiving! I am grateful to all of you for your support.