Executive Message

My first year on the CSEG executive has flown by, and I have enjoyed working with everyone involved. Thank you to Eric Mikkelborg, for being an excellent and prudent Director of Finance and a pleasure to work with. Congratulations to Larry Herd, newly elected incoming Assistant Director of Finance; I look forward to working with you. A lot of effort is put into the various programs of the society by all of the volunteers, and, as one member, I want to thank everyone involved for their time and energy.

I write this having just come back from the 2007 Doodlespiel. It was a very enjoyable and relaxing weekend, and very well run. Kudos to the entire organising committee! It was great to see some old friends and familiar faces again, and it was also great to see new teams coming into the event and having fun. I really appreciate the effort to which the committee has gone in the last few years to allow as many people to participate as possible, such as instituting the hole plug event and formalising fifth players on the teams. I think these initiatives have helped make the Doodlespiel an even better networking event for our society, and a great party!

The finances of our society are in excellent shape right now, due to the current boom in the industry. Last year, following an excellent convention, and an equally successful Doodletrain, we had an excess of revenues over expenses of $298,289. At year end, our cash balance in restricted and nonrestricted funds totalled $1,326,505. However, like Eric before me, I must urge caution and balance. It wasn’t very long ago that we had a deficit year, and everyone who’s been around the industry knows that energy fortunes fluctuate. So we must be prudent and save for our less abundant years.

Having said that, our financial strength has allowed the executive to make a substantial donation to the CSEG Foundation. This donation will to help get the Foundation going, and begin to build up a corpus from which educational and scientific endeavours can be funded into the longer term future. The plan is that even when the CSEG itself may have a lean year, the Foundation can run many programs that further geophysical education and the science of geophysics, such as the Distinguished Lecturer program, for example. Future executives will continue to donate to the Foundation as they feel is prudent, to build up the Foundation’s ability to run programs.

We have just been through the budget process, and several committees are very active and are increasing their efforts this year. In particular, the Outreach committee is working hard to support people coming into the industry and to attract new members. I look forward to another great year at the CSEG!