Presidential Column

This will be my last RECORDER submission as your CSEG President – our Society’s Annual General Meeting on March 24th, 2012 will see the incoming Assistant Directors take over the executive positions, and Rob Kendall, your incoming President, will be taking over mine. This is a good opportunity to reflect on the past year’s activities and provide you, our membership, with a brief overview of our affairs.

Healthy, vibrant and prosperous. I want to start this summary by repeating what I said in the very beginning of my term: The Canadian Society of Exploration Geophysicists, your society, is healthy, vibrant and prosperous. Societal health is not just measured by figures on the balance sheet – although we are very strong according to all financial metrics – but also in the numbers and quality of volunteers and their impact on the world within which we operate. Even after a year at the helm I am still overwhelmed by the levels of volunteerism exhibited by our membership – far more on a percentage-ofmember’s basis than some other societies with which I have become acquainted over the years. It is this deeply rooted volunteer base to which our society owes its success, and I offer my heart-felt thanks to each and every volunteer that has worked and is working on behalf of our society. And if you’re thinking about becoming a volunteer, don’t hesitate. You would be joining a cast of motivated and energetic individuals of all ages and backgrounds with common goals in mind – to provide a valuable service to the society, to network with their peers and to have fun.

The executive year in review. It is a daunting task to outline with one pen stroke, all of the activities that have taken place during my term as President, and no doubt I will miss some of the key events. As I mentioned, we are a very dynamic society with a multitude of moving parts, and the successes of the year are a testament to our staff, volunteers and the executive director-managers who guide our processes.

At the onset of my presidency, I identified four key issues facing the executive in my (then) upcoming term:

1. Our Society’s home office move: The CSEG office has moved to the 5th floor of the Roslyn building downtown. After much deliberation and negotiation, we signed a new 7-year office lease that will see us through to October, 2018. The office is up and running, and Jim and Sheryl are manning the administrative responsibilities while Shauna and Alyssa are administering this year’s GeoConvention.
2. Maintaining the strength of our membership in the upcoming years as the society’s demographics change with the times: Our society continues to grow in membership, and our outreach programs are reaching out to budding geoscientists and the public at large. We must continue our vigilance to ensure that as a society, we remain relevant to our younger members and that we continue to provide value as our senior brain trust retires. This will continue to challenge future society executives well into the future.
3. Mapping out our future destiny and strengthening our relationship with our sister society, the CSPG: The two societies have intertwined destinies, and yet we have struggled to align our visions of the future. We have had opportunities during the year to move various initiatives along a common path but were unable to gain consensus. Our new incoming executive will continue to work with the new CSPG executive to identify common goals and objectives and to look to a future of increased collaboration. Perhaps one day we will even experience a single multidisciplinary society.
4. 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: In the spring of 2011, the CSEG hosted a brainstorming session of senior society executives from the CSPG, the CWLS and the CSEG and past and present convention chairs. At this closed-door session, we developed several Guiding Principles to help us fashion a new agreement to carry us past 2015. While this agreement will take hard work and perseverance to craft, I am confident that we can move forward in the upcoming year so that we will have a new agreement in place in the next twelve months. To that end, the Joint Annual Convention Committee (JACC) is alive and well, and Rob McGrory as Chair has taken the reins to develop a business plan and work towards a long term vision of GeoConvention’s future.

GeoConvention 2011 and 2012. The 2011 joint CSEG, CSPG and CWLS GeoConvention “Recovery” (May 9-13) was a resounding success – financially to the member’s societies, technically to the delegates and as a trade show to the exhibitors. This year’s 2012 “Vision” (May 14-18) will be operated by the CSEG and by all current metrics, the joint Chairs Satinder Chopra (CSEG), John Cody (CSPG) and Roy Benteau (CWLS) have another successful convention in their sights.

CSEG Symposium. Some time back, the idea of honouring local geophysicists was proposed to the CSEG Executive Committee, and a formal presentation for the same was made to the CSEG Executive Committee in April 2011. The proposal was to honour those geophysicists who have distinguished themselves with their geophysical contributions to the Canadian oil and gas industry, enhanced understanding, and are well-known internationally. With active support from the CSEG Executive, a CSEG Symposium Committee was formed to represent, organize and put on such a forum, this year to be held on March 22nd, 2012. The inaugural Symposium will honour Dan Hampson and Brian Russell. As a trial this year, the CSEG Annual Awards will take place at the Forum luncheon, where our society will honour our contributing members, rather than at the traditional award ceremony at March’s Annual General Meeting.

DoodleTrain. This year saw the DoodleTrain Chair Bill Nickerson step down (thanks for all your help and guidance over the formative years, Bill!) and Doug Uffen pick up the conductor’s hat to lead the DoodleTrain committee into its eleventh year, offering a suite of relevant geophysical courses in November. The 2011 Doodletrain offered 17 courses over 5 days and was a resounding success once again.

Social Events. Our traditional social events – the 3rd Annual T-Wave golf tournament (June 20, 2011), the 59th annual Doodlebug golf tournament held at Kimberley Alpine Resort (August 25-27, 2011), the 40th annual CSEG Doodlespiel (January 27-29, 2012) and the 45th annual Ski Spree (February 22-26, 2012) were all great successes this year, and the inaugural CSEG whitewater rafting trip (June 11, 2011) garnered enough excitement to consider running it for another year. Thanks to all of the volunteers who work tirelessly to bring these events to our membership.

Microseismic User Group. On February 28, 2012, Bill Goodway will present to the first-ever CSEG Microseismic User Group meeting. MUG is a newly-created forum for practitioners to share experiences associated with microseismic imaging of hydraulic fracture stimulations. Topics will include survey design, acquisition, and processing although the primary focus will be on practical application and interpretation of microseismic data.

Lunchbox Geophysics. During the course of the executive year (March to March), five lunchbox geophysics talks were organized by the committee and presented by academia and service company geophysicists to CSEG members. These “brown-bag” lunches provide an informal venue for the sharing of technical information and current ideas with peers across the industry.

Distinguished Lecture Tour. This year’s CSEG Distinguished Lecturer was Lee Hunt, presenting his paper “Quantitative Interpretation, New Challenges, and Economic Value” to more than 15 universities across the county, capping his tour at the CSEG technical luncheon on January 23rd.

Canadian Federation of Earth Sciences. The CSEG is a member of CFES the unified voice for earth science in Canada –working to raise awareness of the importance of earth science in Canadians’ daily lives. This year, CFES prepared a bid for the 36th International Geologic Congress which will be tabled this year at the 34th IGC in Brisbane, Australia in August. If successful, the IGC will be held in Vancouver in 2020 and more than 10,000 earth science delegates from around the world are anticipated to attend.

This year, CSEG past President Doug Uffen has been nominated for the two-year CFES President’s role, and, if successful, Doug will take over from current president Bill Stiebel. On behalf of the CSEG, we wish Doug the best of luck.

Society of Exploration Geophysicists. On April 13, 2011, the CSEG hosted SEG Distinguished Instructor Julien Meunier to the Calgary membership to give his touring short course “Seismic Data Acquisition from Yesterday to Tomorrow”.

Chief Geophysicist’s Forum. The CSEG standing committee Chief Geophysicists Forum is comprised not only of Chief Geophysicists, but also of managers involved in a geophysical technical role and senior level geophysicists that are willing to accept additional responsibilities. They get together once a quarter for a breakfast meeting to hear the latest CSEG, APEGGA and CAPP news and to tackle technical issues that benefit our industry community here in Calgary and beyond. In December, 2011, the CGF published their Reserves document on Geophysical Applications – Using Geophysics for Reserves and Resources Classification and Assessment. This document is designed to provide industry focus on ‘new’ reserve/resource booking processes resulting from changes to guidelines from several bodies including the SEC and COGEH.

In addition, a CGF subcommittee has reviewed the February 2011 APEGGA “Practice Standard for Authenticating Professional Documents” and has provided CSEG executives with information for further discussion with the CSPG and CWLS.

Junior Geophysicists Forum. On November 1, 2011, more than 150 junior geophysicists and students were enlightened by Andy Williamson’s talk about his life and career at the 9th annual JGF. This event continues to provide a valuable networking and mentoring tool for students and young geophysicists.

CSEG Foundation. The Foundation is the charitable arm of the CSEG, and manages general and student outreach for the society and provide scholarships, travel grants and learning bursaries to students. This year, Perry Kotkas replaced Brian Russell as Chairman, who joined as co-chair with John Boyd to form the fundraising subcommittee to initiate a major funding drive to increase the Foundation’s Corpus.

The Earth Sciences for Society outreach initiative was held for the second time in conjunction with the annual GeoConvention “recovery” and sponsored more than 2000 high school, junior high and elementary school students and teachers and 900 public and convention delegates to the event.

On June 23, 2011, The CSEG University Student Outreach Committee organized the 3rd annual CSEG Geophysical Industry Field Trip (now GIFT, formerly SIFT). This unique event provided university students studying geophysics a chance to explore the major disciplines handled by geophysicists in the energy industry.

The joint CSPG/CSEG Honorary Address was held on November 2, 2011. This year Jeff Bond talked about Yukon’s ice ages and in a back-to-back presentation, Catherine Jean Hickson explained Rocky mountain tectonics to students and public alike in the Jubilee auditorium.

RECORDER. The CSEG RECORDER provides geophysical related articles and commentaries, information on society events, luncheons, conventions and other information relevant to our membership. Satinder Chopra retired this year as RECORDER editor, leaving room for the prolific John Fernando. Published 10 times each year, the RECORDER continues to be a source of high quality information, editorial content, technical insights and society news. If you have something to say to your peers, John would like to hear from you.

Canadian Journal and Exploration Geophysics. The Canadian Journal of Exploration Geophysics was published by the CSEG in print form from 1965 to 1999. The CJEG was placed in abeyance at this time due to the significant cost of time and money necessary to produce a high quality, refereed publication. In June, 2011, the CSEG e-published the Journal, as an on-line publication, maintaining its high quality refereed nature. New Executive. Effective at the March 26th Annual General Meeting, your new executive will take their positions at the Council table. Please welcome your incoming recruits: Vice President- Ron Larson; Assistant Directors of Education - Shawn Maxwell; Member Services- Kim Nevada; Finance- Wade Brillon; Communications -Jason Schweigert. Thank you all for helping our society by volunteering your time and energies for such a worthwhile cause!