The trip went well and the ACE was altogether very good, and as professionally organised as ever. Total attendance numbers were about 4,500, which is not bad considering the industry woes. The standard of papers was very high, with a high submission to acceptance ratio. I judged two sessions and was quite impressed by the scientific quality.  The exhibition was a bit thinner than normal, but was very well laid out and not so crammed, and actually being so, afforded one more time to saunter through and elect some very interesting people with whom to talk. Prominent among the International Pavilion was the UK Oil and Gas Authority with an almost perfect double-booth and beautiful posters and pamphlets; obviously much time and thought had gone into their promotion of the UK remaining petroleum potential and the business arrangements for realising such. There was a massive poster session area, which I did not get a chance to wander through, and which seemed to be almost the same size as the exhibition hall itself. This was my fifteenth ACE over eighteen years of representing the Asia Pacific region.        

The House of Delegates meeting managed to get about 148 out of 203 delegates seats filled: we only had about five delegates in the end representing Asia Pacific. David Entzminger was appointed as the next HoD Chair and Kristi Luchtel Ferguson as Secretary/Editor of the HoD.  The main business of the HoD was the passage of the new simplified By-Laws of the Association, which now have less legalese, are much more readable, and are possibly intelligible to us petroleum geologists!   Bob Shoup most ably chaired the HoD meeting bringing the debates to order and passed the gabble to Jim McGhay for 2016-2017.

Our Asia Pacific region meeting drew in a smaller crowd than expected.  We hope that for future AAPG ACE and ICE meetings, that region members attending can attend and learn what the region is planning, and offer their expertise and feedback.

 I was unfortunately not able to attend the IBA 2016 Finals where our region winning team from the Institute Technology Bandung gave their presentation, which I heard was very good, but I was able to meet the team and congratulate them at the IBA Awards ceremony and to thank them again for participating in such a dynamic international competition, which this year was won by Texas A&M.

I attended the President's Reception on Monday evening at the top of the Calgary Tower; this was an opportunity for some fun as well as free and frank discussion about AAPG, and life and the universe. It was amply catered for and much enjoyed by all  and by me especially after judging papers all day!

Next year will see the 100th Anniversary of the Founding of the AAPG, so I urge everyone to make the effort to attend the 2017 ACE which will be held in Houston and the 2017 ICE which will be held in London; these events will celebrate 100 years of the promotion of petroleum geology by the Association.