Annual Report 2011: FY July 1, 2010-June 30, 2011
Sections
The Sections Committee meets once a month by teleconference and provides each section president or executive committee officer an opportunity to discuss matters pertinent to their sectional operations and support for the AAPG. During 2010–2011, the exchange of information centered on the following key topics initiated last year such as (1) Sectional and the annual ACE meetings, (2) how to promote the AAPG at the section level, (3) building better relationships between the section and affiliated societies, (4) application of the Constitution & Bylaws, (5) membership recruitment, (6) the Imperial Barrel Competition, (7) student chapters, (8) Young Professionals Committee, and (9) miscellaneous topics coming out of other AAPG Committees or the HoD and its committees.
Monthly Section Committee teleconferences inform Section leaders of the various services available to the Sections from AAPG HQ, including Section election services, marketing services, and liability insurance coverage. During FY2010–2011, Gulf Coast, Mid Continent, and Southwest Sections utilized AAPG services to conduct their elections. The Pacific, Southwest, and Rocky Mountain Sections promoted their annual meetings by sending email blasts from AAPG HQ to Section members. Most Sections called upon AAPG for insurance coverage of their annual meetings and field trips.
Sections Committee Makeup
Historically, the Sections Committee is comprised of the Sections Committee Chair, the vice president of Sections, the current elected Section presidents, plus one or two appointed committee members from each Section. For the past few years this committee structure has been less effective. Alternate forms of Sections committee makeup are being considered.
The monthly teleconferences include primarily the Section presidents. The appointed Sections committee members sometimes participate in the annual Sections committee meeting, but otherwise, seem to have no clear purpose. One obvious challenge to recruiting Sections committee members is the three-year committee term, in addition to the years of service ascending through other Section officer positions to the Section presidency.
One possible solution may be for a smaller committee and have each section president and past president serve on the committee spanning a potential two-year period. This would be an automatic obligation to being elected and gives each section an opportunity to have two members at the meeting. The past presidents will have excellent ideas and suggestions for the section’s committee. Both section members will be well informed about section matters and normally will be attending the convention.
Sections Committee Outreach to Students and Young Professionals (YPs)
Discussions have been held on how to get the sections more involved with the Student Chapters located in affiliated society cities by conducting joint meetings with the Student Chapters. The challenge is how to retain student members after graduation. The focus of the outreach concentrates on the existing generation gap between students and the majority of active members of the AAPG creating a void of communication, rhetoric and rapport. The meeting will be an excellent avenue to recruit student members and promote each Section of the AAPG with the student chapters. The proposed preparation for a joint meeting follows.
- Section requests an affiliated Society to invite local university AAPG Student Chapter to conduct a joint meeting
- Section covers expenses for students (meal)
- Section officers and committee chairs have a viable presence at meeting
- Affiliated Society program chair is the meeting liaison and contacts the university faculty advisor for the AAPG Student Chapter (found on AAPG website) or geology department chair
- AAPG Student Chapter president accepts invitation for the meeting
- Date, time, and location (on-campus preferred but may be off-campus sight) are agreed upon
- Determine food and beverage service for the meeting (ex. pizza party for a luncheon meeting, caterer, or university food service)
- Affiliated Society provides speaker, discusses Imperial Barrel competition, has a member distribute AAPG Student membership forms
- Student Chapter/geology club provides tours of department, discusses current projects, new innovations/equipment, possibly provides a poster session
The project goal provides the student communication with current AAPG members and creates confidence upon joining an affiliated society upon graduation so the young professional is comfortable to immediately become active in the affiliated society, section, and at the annual meeting level.
The Sections have begun recruiting Young Professional members to serve as on their respective boards. These members’ presence will help bridge ideas and future directions as to how they wish to see the sections precede to support their careers and professional development. Providing these types of leadership opportunities and experiences will foster the next generation of AAPG Section leaders.
During monthly teleconferences, the Section presidents are encouraged to draw upon past Student Chapter Presidents and former Imperial Barrel Award Program participants as candidates for Section committees, Section officers, and delegates to the AAPG House of Delegates.
Sections Committee Collaboration with Education Committee
The Sections Committee is discussing with the Education Committee a pool for potential educators based on educators who have presented short courses at the ACE, annual section meetings and other section and AAPG continuing education courses throughout the past several years. The pool would be easily accessed based on a needed topic and the appropriate speaker for the course. Each section has a member placed on the education committee.
During the May Section Presidents’ teleconference, Martin Dubois, representing the Education Committee proposed having an education committee member present at each of the Section board meetings at each of the Sections’ annual meetings. The idea was that this could help promote collaboration and align AAPG Education program offerings with Section needs. Currently, there is a representative on the Education Committee from all but the Pacific Section. Efforts will be made to recruit a Pacific Section representative for the Education Committee. The Sections Committee can play a role to encourage Section Presidents to invite Education Committee representatives to their annual Section board meetings.
Each section discusses their best practices during the monthly teleconferences. These discussions hopefully will yield better continuity between the autonomous section procedures. The teleconferences were moved from bimonthly to monthly following the Houston ACE meeting in May 2011.
The annual section meetings are discussed each month, as the meetings take a tremendous amount of time, planning, and commitment. The financial success of these meetings provides the funding for each section’s various projects including student scholarships and continuing education for the members of each section. The annual section meetings offer a special atmosphere for transferring technical data pertaining to the geological provinces and plays in the geographical limits within each section.
Craig Reynolds, Chair
Committee members:
Danny W. Harrelson, Carroll L. Kinney, Brian Edward Lock, John Albert Minch, Jaime Patino, Craig Wayne Reynolds (chair), and Gregory R. Wrightstone