As Director of Member Services for 2011, it is my pleasure to first of all thank Dave Nordin, outgoing Director and mentor, for all of his outstanding efforts over the past year. He is to be commended.
The Member Services portfolio is charged with monitoring and promoting membership in the society and oversight of many of the premier social events that the society enjoys (Doodlebug, Doodlespiel, Ski Spree, T-Wave Gold Tournament, Junior Geophysicist Forum, CSEG Road Race…). In truth, for the most part, the CSEG Society is blessed with a suite of tremendously talented and dedicated chairs of our premier society social events that more or less run their functions with stellar teams of volunteers, pretty much without CSEG Executive interference but minor oversight.
Those dedicated volunteers, and those from the other executive portfolios, will be remembered on the Volunteer Appreciation Event that has been mine, and Dave Nordin’s, distinct pleasure to plan for this March 23rd. The party is in no way sufficient thanks to the volunteers for the great number of hours spent organizing their events, but is the society’s token way of recognizing their great efforts. Until I began the long arduous task of identifying all of the CSEG Society’s volunteers for 2010, in order to send out invitations, I had absolutely no idea what level of commitment was entailed to keep the societies gears functioning with such oiled smoothness. For a society our size, the percentage of volunteers is truly staggering. It has taken many dozens of emails to committee chairs over several months to build an impressive spreadsheet of ~230 volunteers that helped the society function so well last year. It is truly an astounding reflection on our society. I have entertained a great many geophysicist from overseas and I always enjoy taking them to our technical luncheons. They are amazed at the uniqueness of our tight geophysical community and the number that attend out functions, numbers that put larger petroleum centres to shame. We are indeed a tight knit community that promotes active social and professional networks.
If there is a message here, particularly for the new geophysical graduates starting their careers in our small community, it is to volunteer. Doing so, you will get to know many interesting and diverse people in a variety of companies outside your own small corporate world, which you will no doubt meet many times throughout your career. I have had the pleasure to work geophysical projects in close to 50 countries, and I am amazed at the places while travelling that I’ve “bumped into” CSEG colleagues.
One of Dave Nordin’s initiatives was to try finding social events that would attract the younger members of our society. Dave is still actively planning a white-water rafting trip to try as a new society event (stay tuned in future RECORDERS). The goal for new events is to make them short duration, open to all CSEG members, affordable, cross-generation to maximize networking opportunities, and for both male and female participation. If members have an inspired idea they would like to pursue, please contact me at 294-5574 or barrie.jose@sproule.com to discuss sponsorship and funding of your idea by the Executive.
One trend that the CSEG Executive, and in particular the Member Services portfolio, is monitoring closely are the societies numbers. There has been a decline in recent years, and I will endeavor this year to understand the demographic reasoning, whether through retirements or otherwise. I will hope to publish something in the RECORDER on this later this year. I hope to see you at many of the society’s incomparable events!
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