Later this month at the annual general meeting, my term as Vice President will come to an end and I will become the new President. I would like to take this opportunity to thank and congratulate President Bill Goodway and his entire CSEG executive for a job well done over the 2003-2004 term. They are leaving the society in very good shape. As Bill Good way noted in this column last month, the society this year has ended up with a handsome $300,000 profit from revenues of about $1,000,000.
A few years ago, the phrase "run it like a business" came into popular usage amongst the leadership of the CSEG after some lean financial years for the society. For tho se members who might think that a 30% profit last year was a bit too profitable for a society that strictly speaking is non-profit, one only need s to point out that the past year was a year in which we shared the convention with the CSPG. Shared CSEG/CSPG conventions have always been very successful financially, but we also need to think of the years in between joint convention years.
Shared conventions have not only been successful for the society itself, but they are also viewed very favourably by the membership for their ow n reasons. Exhibitors and sponsors tend to prefer them for the fact that they get better return on their money due to the increased exposure to more delegates. In addition, the broader technical scope of the joint convention tends to attract the interests of more geophysicists whose primary interest is in interpretive and geological aspects of our science. For all of these reasons it makes sense to encourage more joint conventions, and the executive has made plans for this to happen. Through joint inter-society meetings, there is agreement to hold joint conventions every second year after the next one joint convention. The next joint CSEG/CSPG convention will be in 2007.
Until that time, the society can expect less profitable budgets. The projection for next year's budget is for only a marginal profit. Since the budget figures from year to year can oscillate by a fair amount, it is desirable to maintain a fair amount of cushion in the operating budget. A certain amount of the surplus from the good years is therefore kept as part of the operating capital of the society, as a type of emergency fund for rainy days. President Bill Goodway also has plans underway for setting up the CSEG Foundation which will be a source for additional funding for existing and new long term projects such as the scholarship program and other programs that encourage the appeal of our profession to young scientists.
Despite the success of last year's joint convention, there is good reason for some concern about the future role of conventions as a source of funds for the CSEG. The role of the exhibit floor of several conventions, including the CSEG convention, has been undergoing changes in recent years. Mergers have reduced the number of companies vying for a place on the floor, and some existing companies have significantly reduced the amount of floor space that their exhibits use. This has put pressure on the organizers of such conventions to look for other sources of revenue, or ways of reducing expenses, in order to meet budget figures. Fortunately for the coming CSEG convention, many companies appear to see more value in donating sponsorship money than in previous years. I do not believe that these changes to our convention need to be see n as negative. They do lead to a challenge for the future, however. We obviously cannot expect the structure of conventions to remain the same forever. I think we can, however, rely on the appeal of conventions to remain constant.
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