8:30 am to 1:30 pm, on December 1st, 2003at the Valhalla Inn, Toronto

Attendance:

Doug Stead	CGC President
Don James	CGC Financial Director
Alan Morgan	CGC Education Director
Bryan Schreiner	International Director
Bob Mummery	CGC Executive Officer
Peter Dimmell	PDAC
Bill Goodway	CSEG
Richard Grieve	NRCan ESS
Norman Halden	MAC
Andre Roy	CAG
Murray Duke	(NRCAN/ESS)
Richard Grieve	NRCAN/ESS)
Denis Blinn	NSERC
Howerd Stockford	CIM
Harvey Thorleifson	GAC
Apologies
Philip Marsh	CGU

1. Welcome and Introductions
2. Approval of Agenda
3. Approval of Minutes of the 110th Council Meeting (previously circulated and available at http://www.geoscience.ca/minutes/110minvan.htm. Moved by Bill goodway, seconded by Richard Grieve, motion carried.

4. Report from the Council of Presidents’ meeting

Doug Stead reminded members that the meeting (CoP) was not a CGC meeting, although CGC took on the task of organizing it. CGC was pleased with attendance: 10 different groups with a wide range of geoscience interests were represented. Harvey Thorleifson (chair of CoP meeting) summarized the discussions at the CoP. He commented that there was a sense of commitment within the Canadian geoscience community to a “national body” to represent geoscience issues. The morning session involved a review of each society and outline of issues particularly important to their group. The afternoon was spent identifying who we are? what we want? And how we can get there. We are: Canadian geoscientists and international work done by Canadians geoscientists. We want to tackle issues such as: shrinking resources by considering cooperation via mergers, joint ventures and/or a loose “federation”. We hope to: improve public awareness of geoscience; increase a sense of community, optimize recruitment, increase the relevance of our work, increase mobility of professionals, have input into regulations to ensure resource development, increase geoscience research funding and increase Survey funding.
How will we do this? Many societies will undertake individual initiatives on specific issues. The question arose, “what is the role of an umbrella organization?” The answers include: building a sense of community, communicating relevance of geoscience to society and helping geoscience get more from NSERC reallocations.

There was discussion of how we can communicate a vision of the geoscience community to politicians. A one-day workshop in Ottawa on the contribution of geoscience was discussed. The Council of Presidents expressed a desire to meet again in Spring 2004.

5. CGC Future Direction

Revised Draft CGC Constitution (circulated with agenda)

PDAC is already engaged in “Sustainable Mining” (Goal 3f) through a MAC (mining) committee on Sustainable Mining. PDAC offered to play a coordinating role in this area to avoid duplication.
Additional comments included: “standing committees” should be initiated or “sponsored” by individual CGC members. The role of the CGC should be to coordinate and communicate. The CGC does not have the resources to set up standing committees. A view was expressed that Standing Committees were perhaps a relict from the 70s and don’t seem to work anymore.
It was agreed that CGC needs to better define its mission statement in line of the discussions as the Council of Presidents. The role of CGC needs to be “simple” and achievable. CGC needs to build consensus among the geoscience community on the significant issues of the day that impact our reconciliation of the environment. CGC needs to become the “community voice”. It is in a unique position to link solid earth with environmental studies.
There are limits to a volunteer organization. We need to do less but have more focus on coordinating, advocacy and creation of a sense of community in geoscience.
Harvey Thorleifson stated, “We are CGC”. It can be a mechanism for collective action by the geoscience community and also a reflection of that community.
Alan Morgan noted that AGI represents over 100 societies and stated, “What are we doing around this table?” Norman Halden noted, “CGC can help better understand “profession registration” within the “interdisciplinary” environment required to solve current issues”. Why can’t geographers be professional geoscientists? Reference was made to comments circulated by the past CGC President Chris Barnes.
Peter Dimmell stated, “CGC could become a clearing house for information. Consensus may not be possible for some of today’s complex issues, however dialogue is good and helpful to everyone”.
The need to fine-tune the mission statement was re-iterated. CGC’s role should focus on Awareness, Advocacy, Coordination and Community Voice. Members need to invest in CGC to carry out these roles.
There was some discussion regarding the name of the CGC, especially “geoscience”. Should we represent “Earth science”? This is an “awareness” issue. There is a need to bring in groups such as CMOS. We need to make our “sandbox” bigger, so others “can come and play in it”. We need to address climate change and environmental issues especially the interaction between groups involved in addressing these issues.

Past Presidents’ Responses

Most of the past CGC presidents responded to our draft constitution and call for ideas to continue CGC. These responses were circulated by email to all members. It was recognized by the President that the response of the Past CGC Presidents had shown considerable thought toward how to make CGC a more effective forum. It was also a useful exercise in improving communication and in ensuring that “reinvention of the wheel” did not reoccur. The President thanked the Past Presidents for their valuable input. A copy of the Past Presidents responses will be posted on the CGC website.

Status and Administration of International and Education Funding

CGC needs to continue to assist the GSC in funding international obligations (IUGS, IGCP etc). A letter of agreement between GSC (NRCAN/ESS) and CGC is needed. CGC needs to continue support for educational funding (CGEN).

Budget

The current balance sheets and income statements were tabled. CGC is currently operating at a $34.5K loss. Subscription fees for the current year have not been requested. The Board had decided to await the results of today’s meeting before sending out notices. We have $222K of equity to offset the current losses. It was commented that CGC would need to address funding issues in the long term but for the immediate future should continue to move forward the process of change that had been started.

Subscriptions

Doug Stead will draft a letter to accompany subscription requests. The letter will explain the delay and briefly comment on this meeting. The letter will go out before Christmas.

6. Next meeting

The next meeting will take place in the spring of 2004. Location, timing to be determined