1993 CSEG Convention

The 1993 CSEG Convention was clearly a success. Many factors contributed to that success. The Convention Committee would like to take credit for them all, but modesty forces us to admit that we had nothing much to do with the tremendous upsurge in optimism and enthusiasm that just happens to be sweeping our industry. If you’re going to hold a convention, that kind of mood certainly doesn’t hurt.

Looking at the numbers actually gives a somewhat misleading impression. The total number of delegates registered was 1416, compared with 1565 in 1992 and 1902 in 1991. This represents about a 10% drop, which is not that bad, considering the overall decrease in employment levels and general cost-cutting which has been going on the last few years. Fortunately, the total revenues taken in through registration actually INCREASED from $72,000 last year to $73,000 this year, mostly due to the increase in the late registration fee. The number of exhibitors was also down slightly, from 113 last year to 107 this year, contributing to a modest drop in the revenues from that source.

So, if the numbers were modestly down, what is there to get modestly excited about? Plenty of things-first, let’s talk about the technical program. This year’s technical chairman was Peter Cary, and he and his team rose to the occasion with an outstanding performance. The first item that springs to mind is the technical luncheon, at which Dr. Doreen Kimura spoke to us on the subject of “Sex Differences in Intellectual and Brain Function”. Not surprisingly, the luncheon was a sell-out, with more than the usual number of questions and lively discussion at the end. In fact, Peter and his co-chairperson Denise Poley have since wondered if the subject was a little too controversial. My opinion, for what it’s worth, is no-we aren’t just geophysicists; we’re scientists, technicians, part of the thinking world. The convention is a place to stimulate thought and discussion-there’s no such thing as too controversial.

Of course, Peter Cary isn’t just interested in sex. He and his group also organized the very successful workshop on the problems of phase in seismic processing and interpretation. Over the last few years, workshops have become a major compo? nent of the technical program. Following the lead from previous years, Peter chose his topic after polling the CSEG membership at one of the technical luncheons. We were all pleased to see a topic emerge which is so crucial to the type of stratigraphic work done in our region of the world, and a source of obvious concern to the membership. To help provide new insights, Peter arranged for the keynote speaker to be Dr. Anton Ziolkowski from the University of Edinburgh, whose controversial views on deconvolution are well known. Over the course of the afternoon, Dr. Ziolkowski and the other panel members debated the proper approach to deconvolution, and in fact whether deconvolution is valid at all without making direct measurements of the wavelet. The audience was, of course, a constant participant in the discussion, asking tough questions and forcing panel members to grapple with the issues. I won’t say that we solved all the problems, but I do believe we aired all the issues. Hopefully, progress was made.

Of course, the key component of any technical program is a good range of technical papers. This year was no exception to the general rule that the CSEG Convention sets a high standard both in terms of technical quality and relevance to our local exploration problems. Two special sessions were held: one on historical case histories and one on 3-D seismic, with Woody Nestvold from Schlumberger (Paris) as the invited speaker. About the only disappointment to the technical committee was the mysterious lack of poster papers-only one was submitted. Whether this represents a new trend or just an anomaly, we’ll have to wait and see.

One of the problems of every convention is how to increase revenues to cover the extra expenses involved with producing a first class show while still sending back a reasonable profit to the society. The traditional solution to this problem was to approach companies with hat in hand to beg for donations. This may have worked in the boom times when everyone was too busy to worry about where their money was going, but it sure won’t work now. Last year’s committee came up with a novel idea: ask companies to be sponsors and provide a package of benefits in return for their sponsorship fees. The cost of sponsorship ranges from $500 to $3250 and the benefits include such things as free booth spaces, free advertising in the Recorder, and tickets to some of the convention functions. Of course, the hope is that the sponsorship revenues will exceed the cost of providing the benefits. Well, it looks like this is an idea that’s here to stay. Last year’s pioneering group brought in 23 sponsors. This year’s group, headed by Peter McCann, increased that count to 30 sponsors, for a net profit to the society of $12,400. The money is nice to get, but it isn’t the only issue here. The sponsorship level increased because companies felt they were getting good value for their money, rather than simply giving donations. There is a sense of corporate participation in the convention, which is enhanced by publicizing the sponsorship list at many of the convention activities. We think this is a formula for success, and we predict continuous increases in sponsorship level in the next few years.

Many of the activities which are crucial to a smooth-running convention take place behind the scenes, and the mark of a job well done is that the average geophysicist doesn’t know about them. One such activity is the whole registration system. This year Dave Chown coordinated the process of creating registration forms, sending them out, processing advance registrations, and finally orchestrating the group of volunteers (lead this year by Louise Hampson) who do such an outstanding job of manning the registration desks. To complicate things, and hopefully simplify them eventually, Dave decided that it would be a good idea to have a complete new software system written just in time to be tested on the convention floor. Fortunately, Rick Wallace couldn’t resist the challenge of managing the project, and by May 4th, we were all astonished to discover that the thing actually worked. One of advantages of the new system is that it allows us to instantly know how much money we’ve taken in (and hopefully where it went to). It will also help us to make more timely estimates of how profitable the convention is, something the CSEG executive is constantly pestering us about. In fact, it is this new system, as well as his own continuous hard work, which has enabled Jonathon Downton, the Finance Chairman, to boldly state that we have met our profit objective. I won’t point out that eight months after last year’s convention we were in total confusion as to the profit picture, while this year after four months, we’re only in partial confusion. Such is progress.

At the risk of running on and on, I will end by congratulating the entire Convention Committee on an excellent job. Barb Young, in charge of Exhibits, worked out an improved point system by which booth locations are allocated, a perennially touchy topic. Mike Clement, the Arrangements Chairman, plowed through the myriad details associated with a convention this size-a thankless job, since good work is invisible, but a mistake is often a disaster. Thane McKay organized the ice-breaker and made sure we were all well fed and watered at the start of the convention, while Karen Cameron handled the round-up festivities at the Spring Ball. Bob Parker ensured that a good selection of courses was available, and handled all the details of delivering those courses to their audiences. Kevin Angus, as Publicity Chairman, and Derek Boeckx, as Printing Chairman, did everything they could think of to spread the word and drum up enthusiasm. Randy Green, the convention co-chairman, took the minutes at meetings, provided valuable advice on every topic, and generally kept himself in readiness to take over at a moment’s notice if anything should happen to the chairman.

In fact, about the only committee member who didn’t seem to be doing all that much was the chairman. I guess he can’t be faulted too much if his committee insists on running so smoothly.