AAPG Home : Regions : Europe : Newsletters : December 2006 : Vice President
December 2006 | Volume 1 | PDF
Carol Lucas, Editor Email lucascjh@bluewin.ch
 

Reports from AAPG Vice President

by John Dolson, AAPG Vice President

ICE (International Conference and Exhibitions): John Hogg

Conference discussions on track.

Issues to begin discussing: Concern exists around how to structure relationships with the International Regions Committee (IRC) for efficient cooperation regarding local Region conferences.

Example 1: 2007 local Russia conference in Tyumen organized by Rosnedro but with AAPG/SEG participation. What should it be called and how structured to avoid competing with ICE conferences?

Example 2: What is the status of discussions regarding rotating ICE conferences every two years and having multiple local Region conferences in intervening years? IRC (John Kaldi): Important IRC meeting upcoming in Perth and early feedback indicates all Regions will have strong leadership representation. Major focus will be placed on formation of high level Industry/Academia advisory councils in each region.

New Activity:

Canada:
Nothing to update
Africa:
Nothing to update
Asia/Pacific:
Nothing to update
Latin America:
Nothing to update
Middle East:
Nothing to update
Europe:
Quarterly newsletter a huge success thanks to Carol Lucas

Russia News

Posamentier lecture tour highly successful (over 600 attendees in Russia alone). Smaller but high quality turnout in eastern Europe, Paris. Slide-packs donated to at least 3 Universities for teaching purposes.

London office: Gubkin University (Russia) has accepted the challenge to participate in the Imperial College/AAPG barrel award competition.

Industry/Academia Advisory Council: Istán Bérczi is well on his way to organizing a significant advisory board for the European Region of 20 + companies and Universities.

Events:

  1. SPE International conference drew 1850 people over 4 days.
    1. Noticeably absent: Gasprom and Rosnet
    2. Steve Veal manned AAPG booth with student volunteers. Booth was small, unimpressive and lacking the ability to sell books, just put them on display. No copies of the Explorer were provided and this booth should be upgraded to represent this organization better. Despite this, there was strong interest in AAPG.
  2. Istán Bérczi visits
    1. Successful meetings at Gubkin University
    2. Successful meeting with ROSGEO at Chevron Office to begin discussion around a local 2008 conference “3P”— Polar Petroleum Potential. A committee is forming and recommendations moving forward to the EC.
  3. Tyumen conference (Sept. 2007) –East meets West theme:
    1. Organizing meeting held with Rosnedro, Rosneft, Lukhoil, TNK-BP, Shell. Forming organizing committee in November with strong Russian leadership. General venue, topics agreed upon.
    2. Technical program committee to form in Dec.
  4. Interesting developments
    1. Tyumen University is testing a remote multiple Industry and Video conference for students on Monday, Oct. 3. JD will participate from Moscow representing both AAPG and TNK-BP. Joint papers also being presented from Germany. Could be an interesting venue for future small video-conferences with AAPG involvement.
    2. Student membership growing: 37 more members at Gubkin, anticipate another 35+ at MSU on Monday
      1. First Student Chapter web page developed
      2. Discussion on student chapter in St. Petersburg and Tyumen initiated.
    3. TNK-BP to sponsor Tyumen U., Gubkin, MSU for one year Datapages subscription.
    4. Monthly meetings:
      1. Agreement reached with SEG/EAGE to hold 2 evening talks monthly and 24 monthly ‘lunch and learn” for students.
      2. Multi-industry funding for these talks and lunches is being obtained. More speakers needed.

Issues which have been raised:

Funding: AAPG funding at $5000 per region seems low. Some discussion of raising funding to $20,000 level. It is difficult to sponsor events (like with students) if multiple schools are involved (i.e.—Europe/Russia alone could have 10 schools which brings funding to about $500 per school—not much).

Awards: A lot of talk generated by Herman Darman around creating local awards. The AAPG awards committee does a fine job globally, but many, many volunteers locally get little to no recommendation. The IRC will study making a recommendation with Carol McGowen on a number of local awards to be given annually in each Region.

Membership: Latin America region has once again noted that dues are too high. They point to an aging leadership that is losing interest in participation as they approach retirement combined with an inability of young geoscientists to afford dues as a primary barrier to growth.

Local Meetings: As with the ICE, clarification is sought regarding communicating the nature and frequency of local meetings.

Publications Pipeline (Rick Wall): Nothing to report.

Distinguished Lecture International (Gregor Eberli): 2007 Nominations circulated and being voted upon.

Technical Advisory Committee (Pinar Yilmaz): Clarification again sought on relationship of local conferences to ICE and improving communication on upcoming local events.