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The Delegates' VoiceNewsletter for the House of Delegates of AAPG |
APRIL, 2001 |
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Committee Annual Reports
Nominations and Elections Committee return to topThe Nominations & Elections Committee members are as follows:
Nominees for Chairman-Elect and Secretary/Editor were submitted for all but one section/region. A vote was taken to select two (2) candidates from the list of nominees. These candidates are as follows: Chairman-Elect
Secretary/Editor
Future of Earth Scientists Committee return to topby Don Lewis, Chair In the past, the Future of Earth Scientists Committee has looked at a wide range of issues. This year, Chairman Lischer gave the committee a specific charge, with the objective of focusing on a single issue which could be studied in depth:
We have collected some of the available published data concerning student enrollment and first employers for the U.K. and the U.S. An additional key set of data will be a major U.S. geoscience employment survey which has just been completed by the American Geological Institute, with results to be published later this year. Over the next year, we plan to take the AGI data, combine it with AAPG and AGI demographic information, adjust for technological change, and combine it with projections of future energy demand to be able, hopefully, to show a range of geoscience employment opportunities into the future. We shall work closely with the AGI on this to avoid duplication. House member Chris Heath has been surveying the skill sets desired by U.K., Canadian, and now U.S. companies. It makes sense to combine these data with our geoscientist-demand results and make them available to geoscience departments and to our Visiting Geologists Program. Because the main data source will be the AGI surveys, we plan for now to limit the study to the U.S. We also plan to concentrate on the petroleum industry. We could expand to other areas, of interest to the DEG and EMD, if the petroleum part works out well. Within AAPG, we will coordinate with, at least, the Academic Liaison and Industry Liaison Committees, and the AAPG staff. Beyond AAPG, there may be opportunity to cooperate with other societies, such as SEG and CSPG. Any House member who would like to be involved or who can suggest data sources is invited to contact the committee chair.
Credentials Committee return to topby Stewart Chuber, Chair The Credentials Committee consists of five members, including a chairman, who serve a one year term. It has become a custom that four of the members are made up of the House officer candidates, and these folks assist the Chairman, Stewart Chuber from San Antonio, at the delegate registration on the morning of the Annual AAPG meeting, this year to be held in Denver on Sunday, June 3, 2001, starting promptly at 8:15 a.m. The committee usually joins Donna Riggs, our AAPG staff liaison, at about 7 when the choicest pastry and coffee are ready. They review and prepare for the arrival of the 254 delegates and/or their alternates, thus the term credentials. You don’t get in without them. Comprising the Credentials Committee with Chairman Chuber are officer candidates for HOD Chairman: Don Clarke from Long Beach, CA and Terry Hollrah from Oklahoma City, and for HOD Secretary-Editor Marty Hewitt from Calgary and Brian Keith from Bloomington, IN. As before, all delegates are urged not only to attend the Denver meeting but to get there early, eat the good stuff, meet the candidates, and talk with your friends or make new ones. This is a great time to really enjoy the camaraderie of the House of Delegates. With that in mind, Donna Riggs has prepared an overview of the HOD by Sections and Regions; how many do you know, and from which sections and societies? The HGS (Houston) has the largest delegate group with 55. RMAG (Denver) is second with 19. Two regions tie for third; Canada and Europe each have 15. Asia/Pacific is next with 13, followed by DGS (Dallas) with 12. All others have eight or fewer delegates. There are 12 U.S. Societies without a delegate and five U.S. Societies and one Region that are under-represented, which is 21 delegates short of a full house. This is not out of the ordinary and some societies make last minute appointments for the meeting. There are 46 At-Large Members of the HOD, several who serve currently as Delegates.
Resolutions Committee return to topby Marty Hewitt, Chair The Resolutions Committee is charged annually with making recommendations concerning all advance petitions, resolutions or motions offered by Delegates, Affiliated Societies or by charge from the Chairman of the House. The 2000 – 2001 Resolutions Committee is comprised of the following Delegates:
At the time of submission of this report, two Applications for Affiliation have been submitted. The first application is from the Association of Petroleum Geologists based in Dehra Dun, India and the second is from the Japanese Association of Petroleum Technology based in Tokyo, Japan. The AAPG’s Executive Committee has approved the application from the Association of Petroleum Geologists, while the application from the Japanese Association of Petroleum Technology is pending. Final details on these approvals will be posted on the Delegates Forum when available. The Resolutions Committee will review these applications and make a recommendation for approval at the HOD Annual Meeting June 3 in Denver. At the 2000 meeting of the HOD in New Orleans, the Resolutions Committee under the leadership of Valary Schulz, made a procedural recommendation comprised of a series of steps to deal with Affiliated Societies that have become inactive. The concern was for members of the Association who have no voice in the business of the House. Additionally, when new members in those geographic areas apply for membership in AAPG, there is no one available to perform the “Delegate check”. Consequently, applicants are being accepted for membership based on the information in their application, with no peer review process. The straw vote taken on this recommendation was approved unanimously and now resides with the Rules and Procedures Committee for formal incorporation in the Rules and Procedures of the House. The 2000-2001 Resolutions Committee continues to monitor Affiliated Societies that have become inactive either by failing to elect a Delegate or failing to have Delegate representation at the Annual Meeting. A total of 276 Delegates are eligible to be elected to the House from the Affiliated Societies and International Regions. Currently, only 251 Delegates have been assigned. Consequently, just over 1400 members or 8% of AAPG’s Active membership are not represented or are under-represented in the business of the House. Concerning representation at the HOD Annual Meeting in New Orleans, 24 of 64 Affiliated Societies were not represented. All International Regions had representation at the meeting. One additional item that the Resolutions Committee has been charged to review by Chairman Lischer is the current demographics of the HOD, specifically with respect to potential cyclic problems in populating the various Standing Committees of the House. This becomes especially important when assigning Delegates to committees that require staggered 2-year terms. Our review of the data as provided by AAPG Headquarters is as follows: We currently have 251 Delegates with 77 in their first year, 85 in their second year and 89 in their third year. A total of 32 Delegates in their first year have served multiple terms, 24 in their second year have served multiple terms with 36 in their third year serving greater than one term. The Committee felt that it was important to look at multiple terms to get a feel for experience. According to the HOD Rules and Procedures, a total of between 43 and 47 Delegates are required to serve on House Standing Committees (depending on how many Committee members the Secretary/Editor requires for the Newsletter Committee). Of these, 18 positions (Rules & Procedures, Constitution & Bylaws, Resolutions, Future of Earth Scientists) require 2 year terms. Ideally, the Delegates to populate these Committees will come from those starting their second year. A review of the data suggests that there are certainly enough Delegates to fill these Committees and enough “experienced” Delegates with greater than one term’s service that have a feel for the business of the House that could fill the Chair’s role. The Resolutions Committee feels that it is critical to make an effort to include several first year Delegates on committees thereby affording an opportunity for natural leaders to come forward and for first year Delegates to become familiar with the operations of the House. The bottom line is that we feel the pool of available and experienced Delegates is more than adequate and will not present a cyclic problem in populating Standing Committees. Please feel free to contact any of the Committee members with comments or questions related to this report and the business of the Resolutions Committee Independent Audit Committee (Ad Hoc) return to topby Will Greer, Chair The committee was appointed to report on the need for a financial and staff audit of AAPG every five years as a result of a HOD vote at the meeting in New Orleans in April 2000. Other committee members were Dave Campbell, Terry Hollrah, Ed Picou, and Dan Smith. Specifically, the committee was charged by HOD Chairman Lowell Lischer to answer four questions: 1. Are we required by either the laws of incorporation of Colorado or the IRS to conduct an annual independent financial audit? And, doesn’t the AAPG do this already?
2. Why did a previous executive committee call for an independent audit of staff and personnel? Do similar needs still exist? What was the cost of the study?
3. Doesn’t the Executive Committee already have the power to call for an independent audit of personnel and staff if deemed necessary?
4. Is it really necessary to establish scheduled personnel and staff audits and incur this expense on a regular basis?
Operating Efficiency Committee (Ad Hoc) return to topby Tom Maris, Chair The function of the OEC is to review and evaluate procedures, which have the potential to make our HOD and Association’s operations more efficient, cost effective, and communicative. These procedures can be adopted by administrative action of the House officers, through additions to the Rules and Procedures, or by approval of the Executive Committee. Last year’s embryonic committee, chaired by Pat Gratton, submitted a rather thorough list of items to be considered; several of which have been infused into our system; i.e. HOD website for better communications and several others which are being proposed by the Rules and Procedures Committee at the Denver meeting. The 2000-2001 OEC is composed of Ed Heath, George Eynon, Larry Jones, Marty Hewitt, Deborah Sacrey, Brenda Cunningham and Ed Dolly. We are currently in the process of reviewing and prioritizing last year’s suggested items and considering additional items. A full report will be available on the HOD Forum and at the meeting on June 3. Should you have any new ideas or suggestions for next year’s OEC, please contact me at mairsgeol@aol.com, 214.692.9621 fax, or 214.265.9533 phone. Honors and Awards return to topby Brenda Cunningham, Chair The Delegates were requested to submit nominations for the year 2001 House of Delegates Honors and Awards:
The members of this term’s Honors and Awards Committee are:
Nominations and the appropriate supporting documentation were due no later than March 15, preferably in electronic form. More information may be found on the AAPG website under the House of Delegates Rules and Procedures. |
In this issue …Officers Columns: Committee Reports:> Constitution and Bylaws Agenda for June 3 MeetingSouth Texas Geological Society
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The House officers and committee chairs will be posting on the House Forum more updates and additional information for the House meeting on June 3. Be sure to visit Delegate's Forum often, and discuss the issues with fellow delegates and AAPG members before the meeting.