President’s Messages

NANNA ELIUK
CSEG PAST PRESIDENT

As the 2021 President of the Canadian Society of Geophysicists (CSEG), and now Past President, I want to thank all of you for the support you’ve given the society over the years and your ongoing support in working together to promote the science of geophysics. Even though there are still challenging times ahead, there remains a need for geophysicists and because of this, the CSEG will continue to serve its members. As we look ahead, our strategic direction in 2022 set forth by the 2021 Board will start to be implemented. The three main objectives are 1) Strategic Focus, 2) Member Centricity, 3) Operational Agility.

As I am writing this message to the membership, I have just finished a week of back to in-person CSEG events and the enthusiasm and energy at both the CSEG Symposium and the Doodlespiel in Banff were infused with a lot of optimism and almost euphoria of re-connecting with long lost contacts and the initially awkward moments of speaking to and seeing people in person. While the past 2 years have been a difficult one for many of our members, both individual and corporate, and you may have been personally affected by the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic restrictions or dealing with the sickness of family or friends, I would like to focus on the positive moments of change we have started to implement within the CSEG that will bring about change as we work on our new strategic pillars.

Our Strategic Focus will include evaluating our existing programs and determine what works, what needs an overhaul and what new value propositions can be defined to expand membership across Canada. We are also working to expand collaboration with partner societies and have signed an updated GeoConvention Partnership agreement to further continue our collaboration with the CSPG and CWLS. We are participating in the Williston Basin Conference in Regina in May and hope to further expand collaboration across Canada. We have initiated a new collaboration with Canadian Heavy Oil Association (CHOA) and will be hosting a Joint Symposium in November, so please stay tuned for more information on this new technical event. We have also kicked off some of our new technical subgroups and I am excited to see the first upcoming technical talks from the Engineering Geophysics and Energy Diversification groups. Additional exciting groups have been formed to expand our offerings to represent all aspects of what we work on as geophysicists. Please get involved and if you are not seeing what is of interest to you, bring new ideas forward as we are expanding our offerings.

Another pillar we identified is an increased focus on members – a Member Centricity pillar. We want to focus on our members by providing the right kind of educational and social events at the right price, staying focused on what matters to members, and developing member experiences that constantly evolve, improve and add value. It is a goal to transform the CSEG culture to encourage learning and collaboration, and to offer both virtual and in-person events that our members want. The CSEG Symposium was offered both as in person and hybrid to provide flexibility for attendees and provide options for those members that are not located in Alberta. We are very focused on providing a very affordable membership and should anyone need financial assistance to become a CSEG member or attend technical education events we have options to apply for CSEG Foundation funding, including travel grants. The CSEG Foundation is planning to restart the outreach program that has been very popular in the past and the Earth Science for Society exhibition will resume in November with save-the-date for November 27-29th 2022. Bring your kids or grandkids, or your neighbours’ kids and get them interested in geoscience from a young age! The CSEG Foundation also completed the distinguished lecture tour across Canada and there will be a few additional dates where you can catch this great talk on geological storage of carbon and the role of geophysics. If you feel that we are not reflecting what YOU want as a member or corporate member, please reach out as we want to hear from you and work with you on what is important to all future, current and past members. and I would like to remind you all to encourage your underemployed, student, or retired friends and colleagues that we have lower fees or no fees to support their memberships, as we know the past year(s) have been challenging for them as well. No one should be prohibited from being a CSEG member due to economic reasons. Please call us at (403) 262-0015 to discuss. Toward this end, I would like to challenge each of you to invite our young geophysicists, geologists, petrophysicists, and engineers to join the society and encourage them to become actively involved and participate in all that the CSEG has to offer. We have great offerings to anyone interested in geoscience, and engineers can find value and discounts in attending GeoConvention, Symposiums, courses and our many social events and much more.

For the Operational Agility pillar, we have taken the relatively quiet time of the past year to start working on operational efficiencies that will make our interaction with members and volunteers more efficient. We are in the process of final beta-testing of the new CSEG website that will allow for timely updates at a fraction of the cost. You will find the registration process streamlined for events and the membership renewal will be on a continuous basis year-round and gives you the option for autorenewal, so you don’t forget to renew, like I usually do. This will be rolled out in the coming months as we test and ensure it is fully functional. We have closed the CSEG physical office as the lease was up and it was an expensive space with little usage, especially in the past 2 years. Our staff Jim Racette and Alyssa Middleton have been switched to home office to allow them to balance work and life better and focus on adding value to the interactions with our members. We have space available for booking in-person meetings as needed, so contact them to book downtown meeting space for your committee meetings and the CSEG Zoom license is available to book for your virtual or hybrid meetings as needed.

I invite all of you to share your thoughts of the CSEG’s strategic direction and contribute where you can add value, and I would like to personally thank all the volunteers who tirelessly contribute their time to the endeavors of the CSEG. Without them, the society would not exist. I have volunteered in the past on many of the committees the CSEG supports, and the enthusiasm and drive of our volunteers astounds me. As a part of our gratitude, we are hosting a very overdue in-person volunteer appreciation during GeoConvention, and I look forward to seeing you all there. Stay tuned for details and a personal invite.

Very best regards, Nanna Eliuk, CSEG Past President

KATHLEEN DOREY
CSEG PRESIDENT

As I begin my term as incoming President for the CSEG I want to thank the past President, Board of Directors, committee members and numerous volunteers for their outstanding and persistent efforts in 2021 that allowed the CSEG to be where it is now. It has been a very challenging year with a worldwide pandemic in addition to prior unprecedented contractions in our energy economy.

As we enter 2022, we are seeing things starting to evolve and change for the better. We’ve just had our first major in-person technical event, the CSEG Symposium. This was a major milestone for the CSEG signaling the initiation of hosting events in-person again and also being able to offer a virtual option as well. The Society and its multitude of volunteers are working tremendously hard to repeat this success at the upcoming GeoConvention 2022, to be held in the same manner. Check out our other amazing upcoming events, such as the CSEG Foundation’s Earth Science for Society, on our website cseg.ca.

The CSEG not only provides the interaction and forum for education, scientific events and publications but also provides social gathering opportunities to our members. These events are highly valued, enjoyed by a diverse membership and serve to provide the in-person connections and camaraderie that wasn’t possible over the past two years. The 2022 Doodlespiel was proof of the desire of the membership to attend these types of events and re-emphasized the benefit of the CSEG to the membership. This event took place in the beautiful Canmore / Banff area and was enthusiastically enjoyed by over 150 members. We anticipate the other planned social events to follow suit in the coming year with matched success and tremendous member support!

As I look forward to the coming year, the Board and I will be guided by our recent strategy session and the vision of the future that was forged as a result. The strategy session, held in June of 2021, highlighted three areas of focus in order to achieve the sustainability, growth and membership engagement of the Society. One of the focus areas was improving the operational agility of the Society. In order to do this the CSEG staff have begun implementation of a new website, an updated membership database and new registration system as well. This will allow an improvement to our member services as well as maximize our current staff resources.

With the emergence of the new energy economy, there was recognition that our education services needed to expand to include these burgeoning fields of science and to highlight the geophysicist’s role in these areas. As such, the CSEG has expanded our educational offerings to include seminars and conferences that provide our membership with these additional sources of education and learnings. At the same time, it was recognized that our traditional background of oil and gas geophysical expertise and technology remains vital to the Society and its members and will continue to be very much a part of the CSEG’s educational portfolio into the future.

It was recognized by the Board that the CSEG membership could be expanded across the country with renewed and concerted effort. This expansion effort is intended to include a broader reach in terms of education, training and member services. Most recently this has been achieved by our collaboration with the Williston Basin Conference in May of this year, our inaugural joint CSEG-CHOA conference to be held in November, re-initiation of the Doodleship training program in Newfoundland in 2023, as well as efforts by our Mentorship committee to provide a new national organization for young and emerging geophysicists. As the year progresses our dedicated volunteers and committee members will actively look for additional opportunities to expand the CSEG reach.

In order for the Society to continue to grow and expand, we need your help and support! If you haven’t renewed your membership or know of someone who would like to be a member, let us know! We are enthusiastic to have you join the Society and contribute to our future success and growth. If you’d like to volunteer for the CSEG feel free to contract myself or Jim Racette at the CSEG office. We’d like to get you involved in the transformative and exciting events happening!

Sincerely, Kathleen Dorey, CSEG President