Executive Message

At the March Annual General Meeting, I replaced Penny Colton as the Director of Educational Services. I enjoyed being Penny's apprentice over the past year. Penny has been indefatigable in her efforts to make her portfolio run smoothly. Her attention to detail was admirable. Fortunately the heads of all the committees that fall within my responsibility are extremely capable so they are unlikely to let me drop the ball, that Penny passed on to me, during the next year.

The Director of Educational Services facilitates the smooth running of four committees: Continuing Education; Technical Convention; Scholarship; and Outreach. The Director is also responsible for arranging for the selection of Best Paper Awards, Distinguished Instructor Short Course (DISC), and 10 technical luncheons.

Bill Nickerson heads up the Continuing Education Committee. He and his committee have created the extremely successful Doodletrain Week, which now has it's own subcommittee. I feel that the Doodletrain Week is the most successful educational initiative of the CSEG since I became a member, some 30 years ago. This year's DoodleTrain subcommittee , also chaired by Bill Nickerson, has a full slate of 23 courses with outstanding instructors scheduled for the week of November 1, 2004. The keynote speaker will be the well-known Ken Lamer, from the Colorado School of Mines. Bill Nickerson is not content to rest on his laurels. He is now searching for new educational initiatives and welcomes ideas from the membership. Bill has developed contacts with his CSPG counterparts so that joint CSEG/CSPG courses may be given in the future. Their plan is to be able to promote each other's courses at our luncheons and in our publications, and offer discounts to members of either society.

Satinder Chopra capably chaired the 2004 Convention Technical Committee. The 2004 Convention, as of the middle of April, has a full slate of 100 oral papers in 14 regular sessions , 22 poster papers, a special session featuring six presenters with specific expertise, and four workshops. In addition to this role, he still head s the RECORDER Committee and is Production Editor and is also the head of the web site committee. I must note that a couple of years ago, Satinder took over as Editor of the RECORDER. His hard work and guidance has made it an outstanding technical communication vehicle for our society. CSEG is fortunate to have someone of such dedication and vision. The Committee engaged an internationally known motivational speaker, John Arnatt, to speak at the convention luncheon.

Elizabeth Hasselgren has taken over the chairmanship of the Scholarship Committee this year. This committee works very independently soliciting funds for scholarships, publicizing the availability of these scholarships and selecting worthy recipients. Last year 14 two thousand dollar scholarships were awarded across Canada to individuals attending postsecondary education across Canada , who wish to study Geophysics. The number of scholarships is directly dependent on donations as the income from the trust funds for this purpose is limited. Currently the CSEG is working to set up a foundation, which will be similar to the SEG Foundation. We hope to put the Scholarship Fund within the aegis of the foundation. Our intent is to augment scholarship funds through the foundation.

The Outreach Committee promotes the Geophysical discipline to high school, university students and the public at large. Helen Isaac as the Outreach Committee Chair, has brought forward new initiatives which include the design of a new convention booth for the CSEG, support for the Canmore Stones and Bones youth summer program, partially funding a new crate specific to the earth sciences for the Science in a Crate Program, and providing expertise for designing the contents of the crate. The Outreach Committee are also preparing some presentations designed to promote interest in Geophysics to be available to individuals volunteering to present them at schools.

Normally, the Distinguished Instructor's Short Course, (one day) is given in the spring but it has been delayed this year because of some problems in getting the course book published. Our plan is to hold this course, titled Petroleum of Deep-Water Settings, presented by Paul Weimer, on September 29, 2004. It is described on the SEG web site as follows, "This course provides geophysicists with a broad overview of the petroleum systems of deep-water settings. The course design allows geophysicists to quickly integrate the information into their daily workflow." This course will be of considerable interest to geologists. We will be promoting it to geologists through the CSPG luncheons and in 'The Reservoir.'

We have speakers scheduled for our technical luncheons up until June of this year. There are many jobs associated with the holding of these luncheons but it has been made very easy for me by the help of a dedicated group of volunteers whom I wish to thank. Especially ticket seller extraordinaire Lisa Eastman. This group also helped to select the Best Paper awards. The fall and winter speakers have not been assigned aside from two distinguished SEG lecturers. I would be very interested in your feedback as to what topics/speakers you would like to see.

A new initiative called Lunchbox Geophysics was launched in January. Intended to be very informal, these are twenty-five minute talks designed to be interactive, on topics relevant to smaller numbers of members than the normal monthly technical luncheon talks. The second talk in this series was held on April 29th at the APEGGA offices. Our intent is to offer this smaller venue series of talks on a monthly basis beginning in the fall but it will depend on available speakers, topics and response from the membership.