Presidential Column

I want to start out my first column as President of the CSEG by extending my personal gratitude to all of our volunteers who help run your society. April 10-16 marks Canada’s 68th National Volunteer Week, paying tribute to the millions of Canadians who graciously volunteer their time and energy. Your contribution to the success of our organization cannot possibly be over-stated. As the incoming president, I am still amazed at the network of successfully volunteer-operated programs that we conduct in our Society. Out of the current membership of approximately 1800, more than 250 members are listed in our records as volunteers in some capacity, comprising almost 15% of our membership. I can’t possibly recognize all of the groups in a single column, so in future columns I hope to be able to detail all of the various committees and initiatives that our volunteers are working on.

As I write this column, we are mere weeks away from our biggest annual volunteer activity, the 2011 CSPG CSEG CWLS Joint Annual Convention, which is promising to be a magnificent event by all predictive metrics – sponsorship, exhibits and registration. The theme this year is recovery 2011 appropriately named to mark the way for economic, environmental and energy recovery. The convention volunteers headed up by the Steering Committee of General Co-Chairs and their respective technical Co-Chairs Rob McGrory and Laurie Bellman (CSEG), Paul McKay and Per Kent Pedersen (CSPG) and Satyaki Ray and Simon Corti (CWLS) have worked tirelessly to bring this year’s event to fruition. I’m confident that I will be reporting next month on the convention’s huge success, and if you haven’t done so already, I encourage you to attend recovery 2011 as your society’s premier affair.

In this issue, I highlight your executive team (Board of Directors), having just completed the handoff at our March AGM: a big thank-you goes out to our retiring executive committee members – John Townsley (now Past-President, who actually doesn’t get to retire for another year), Jon Downton (ex-Past-President who actually does get to retire), Kelly Jamison (who has volunteered for another “extra” year as Finance Chairman because his original successor has moved out of town), Dave Nordin (Member Services), Kristy Manchul (Communications) and John Fernando (Educational Services).

You can find the CSEG Organization chart at cseg.ca/members/cseg-executive, that will help guide you through the many activities of the CSEG and how they are reported back to the Executive. In future columns I will be referring to this Org chart to explain the different committees and organizations that we are involved with.

With the exception of the President, your Directors volunteer for a two year hitch in order to provide continuity and mentorship. The President volunteers for a three year term plus continued involvement in the President Advisory Council.

In addition to our full-time staff of two: Managing Director Jim Racette and Admin Services and Marketing Coordinator Sheryl Meggeson, please welcome your current executive:

• Larry Herd (President)
• Rob Kendall (Vice President),
• John Townsley (Past President),
• Kelly Jamison (Director of Finance),
• Glenn Malcolm (Assistant Director of Finance),
• Barrie Jose (Director of Member Services),
• Patrick Tutty (Assistant Director of Member Services),
• Cheran Mangat (Director of Communication),
• Jason Noble (Assistant Director of Communication)
• Mike Perz (Director of Educational Services)
• Hugh Geiger (Assistant Director of Educational Services)

The contact information for each of the Executive can be found at our website at http://cseg.ca/ and inside the front of each edition of the RECORDER.

I mentioned in my last column as the incoming President that there are several challenges on the horizon for this year:

• maintaining the strength of our membership in the upcoming years as the society’s demographics change with the times;
• mapping out our future destiny and strengthening our relationship with our sister society, the CSPG;
• working with the CSPG and the CWLS to firm up our convention relationship by developing a collective and equitable long-term CSEG / CSPG / CWLS vision going forward; and
• our Society’s home office move.

As we move forward on these issues and many others, I will continue to report back to the membership through the monthly President’s Message. Next month I will be reporting on the Convention and introduce the RECORDER group – until then, have a great convention, and hopefully we’ll be done with winter by then.