Ad Hoc Committee
on
Advisory Council Proportional Representation
Richard G. Green,
Chair
The Gulf Coast Association
of
Geological Societies (GCAGS) Board of Directors endorsed a plan
in October, 2001 to restructure the American Association of Petroleum
Geologists (AAPG) Advisory Council (AC) and forwarded this proposal
to you. This proposal calls for a change in the current formula
for representation on the AC from 5000 members per AC seat to 1000
members (and major part thereof). At current census, this would
increase the Gulf Coast Section from 2 to 6 members and Rocky Mountain
Section and Southwest Section from 1 to 2 AC seats each. The GCAGS
proposal would then support a combination of observer status (non-voting)
sections, or regions, to voting seats provided their combined census
was 501 members or more. The AC seat for Divisions would also be
reduced to 501 in this proposal from the current 750 members. A
further stipulation was that proportional representation would apply
within sections such that no local society could have more than
their proportional share of the section elected to the AC seats.
At your
request, I chaired an Ad Hoc Committee of the House of Delegates
to debate and ultimately recommend or reject this proposal to the
House leadership, and the Constitution and Bylaws Committee (CBL)
of the HoD.The committee consists of Jim Rogers of the Rocky Mountain
Section (RMS), Pete Gray and Clint Moore of the Gulf Coast Section
(GCS), Carl Smith of the Eastern Section (ES), Marty Hewitt from
Canada Region (Canada) with Will Green and Richard Green from the
Southwest Section (SWS). The committee was formed in August and
debated via Email until final votes were taken in December, 2002.
Carl Smith chose to abstain due to a family death, but all other
members voted and participated. The final vote was 4 to 2 in favor
of recommending the GCAGS proposal to you.
The committee
was clearly split geographically and a compromise proposed by Will
Green modifying the GCAGS proposal to 2000 members (versus 1000)
was originally considered as a third alternative to acceptance or
rejection of the GCAGS proposal. This resulted in a 2 to 2 to 2
vote with Canada and RMS for no change to the formula, GCS for the
change and SWS for the compromise. Of note is the committee still
was 4 to 2 for some sort of revision to the AC formula. When the
revote was limited to yes or no regarding just the GCAGS proposal,
the final vote was obtained with both SWS members moving to the
GCAGS position.
The arguments
for change center on fairness and proportional representation on
the AC since 55 percent of our membership is concentrated in just
three sections and over 33 percent is in the GCS. To a lesser extent
some recent unusual AC award and candidate recommendation patterns
also argued for change as did realization that the DPA uses a similar
system of proportional representation for the DPA Board. Most arguments
for retention of the current formula and AC focused on the potential
for the AC to become more unwieldy due to size, the fear of GCS
domination, and the need for continued "independence"
of the AC. Arguments on both sides had considerable merit. I believe
the committee did an excellent job debating a very important issue
and I applaud each of them for their work and for reaching a recommendation.
Editor's
Note: The original GCAGS motion and graphs showing the present and
proposed distribution of AC seats were not printed in this issue
due to space limitations. If anyone would like a copy of the material,
please request it from one of the HoD
officers and it will be sent via email or mail.
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JULY 2003