International News
Association of Environmental & Engineering Geologists 60th ANNUAL MEETING
Colorado Springs, CO
September 10-16, 2017
2017 Annual Meeting Preliminary Report
This report has been prepared by David Bieber and Julia Frazier, General Co-Chairs of the 2017 Annual Meeting and Heather Clark, AEG’s Meetings Manager along with input from various Planning Committee members. AEG hosted AEG’s 60th Annual Meeting held September 10 – 16 at the Antlers Hotel in Colorado Springs, Colorado. The following report provides a draft summary of the meeting, including preliminary attendance numbers for the events, a few of the challenges and successes. An estimated 456 people attended the meeting. International Attendees – Italy, Nigeria, South Africa, Botswana, Guatemala, Canada, Democratic Republic of Congo, Jamaica, Egypt, United Kingdom, Panama, South Korea, Oman and Peru.
Registration – 456 Attendees
- Full Registrations- 244
- One Day Registration – 48
- Exhibitor Registration – 51
- Short Course Only – 8
- Banquet Only – 14
- Guest Registration – 34
- Student – 42
- Emerging Contaminants Symposium Only – 1
- Public Forum: Landslide Hazards of Colorado Springs Only – 15
- Annual Banquet – 150
- Awards Luncheon – 61
- Special Event – 87
- Women in AEG/AWG Breakfast – 40
- Student Lunch – 22
- Field Trip #1 – Field Trip #1: Fire, Flood, and Landslide Impacts and Mitigation – 26 attendees
- Field Trip #2 – Garden of the Gods Geology – 27 attendees
- Field Trip #3 – Cripple Creek/Victor Gold Mine – 14 attendees
- Field Trip #4 – Industrial Minerals Mining and Geology in the Royal Gorge Region – 15 attendees
- Guest Tour #1 – Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center – 7 attendees
- Guest Tour #2 – Cave of he Winds – 10 attendees
- Guest Tour #3 – Pike Peak Cog Railway – 16 attendees
- Guest Tour #4 – Garden of the Gods – 12 people attendees
- Short Courses #1- Debris Flow – 5 attendees
- Short Course #2 – Professional Ethics – 9 attendees
- Short Course #3 – Characterization of Rock Core and Borehole Conditions for Engineering & Environmental Projects – 8 attendees
- Short Course #4 – geoDRONEology – 14 attendees
- Student Coordination: Student Volunteers – We had 23 student volunteers, this is less than we typically have as we were trying to save costs. If we did not get a few last minute cancellations then it would have worked well.
- Daily Schedules – In order to stay environmentally friendly we did not print daily schedules and used the Mobile App for all changes.
- Program with Abstracts – AEG Members received their Program with Abstracts online six weeks before the meeting and hard copies were distributed at the meeting. We also included a pull out section in the June AEG NEWS that included geology of the area, hotel information and information about the Guest Tours, Field Trips, Short Courses and Special Events.
- Hotel – The hotel changed ownership after our contract was signed and despite close management on our side, we had a few glitches that occurred in the transition including the renaming of the Presidential Suite causing a miscommunication on the hotel’s part with the room for Dale Andrews. We had a few issues with AV, but most were taken care of either before the session or were resolved within 2 minutes so the Technical Program ran much more seamlessly this year.
- Room Pickup
| 9/9 | 9/10 | 9/11 | 9/12 | 9/13 | 9/14 | 9/15 | 9/16 | 9/17 | Total |
| Sat | Sun | Mon | Tues | Wed | Thurs | Fri | Sat | Sun | |
| 2 | 27 | 79 | 150 | 163 | 162 | 67 | 30 | 3 | 683 |
One complimentary suite was given to President Dale Andrews and 1 room for 7 nights was provided for the staff. We received 14 complimentary rooms with our 1 in 50 comp rooms. 3 were provided for Keynote Speakers, 5 for Short Course Instructors and 6 for the Co-Chairs.
- Technical Program – The Technical Program had 159 Oral Presentations and 17 Poster Presentations. We added a new Environmental Symposium, Emerging Contaminants and have a total of seven Environmental Sessions this year. The Keynote Speakers were three speakers from the Colorado Department of Natural Resources. Thomas Waldron, Linear Construction Projects – Transco Natural Gas Pipelines; John Hunyadi with the Colorado Department of Natural Resources Division of Water Resources Dam Safety Branch and Ethan Greene with the Colorado Department of Natural Resources Avalanche Hazards Program.
- Sponsors and Exhibitors: We had 33 exhibitors and many sponsors for a total of $50,570.00
- AEG’s Outstanding Environmental & Engineering Geologic Project of the Year was awarded to Colorado Inactive Mine Reclamation Program
Special Events
- Numerous special meeting activities and events enhanced the 2017 Annual Meeting. The Ice Breaker on Tuesday, September 12 and the Exhibitor Luncheon on Wednesday, September 13 were in the exhibit hall and helped draw attendees to the exhibitors.
- Awards Luncheon and Corporate Business Meeting was held on Thursday, September 14. Dale Andrews, outgoing President, and Greg Hempen, incoming President, presided at the meeting.
- The Annual Banquet was held Thursday, September 14. A new AEG Foundation Scholarship was announced, The Susan Steele Weir “Women of Steele” Scholarship.
- Take-a-Student-to-Dinner – A total of 6 dinners were purchased
- Take a Young Professional or Student to Breakfast, 4 tickets were purchased for the Women in AEG/AWG Breakfast.
- The Women in AEG•AWG Breakfast was held on Friday, September 15. Susan Steele Weir sponsored the event and arranged for the Colorado State Geologist t speak.
- The annual meeting’s Special Event was a Brewery Tour and Dinner at Phantom Canyon Brewery across the street from the Hotel
Challenges for the 2016 Annual Meeting
- Partnering with FGIM was extremely challenging and should be well vetted and reviewed for the future
- Hotel – Some minor AV and room set issues but all were handed quickly. The Presidential Suite was inadequate. They offered numerous amenities to make up for it.
- Short Courses – We were only able to run one Short Course and it only has 10 people. We may want to relook at the Short Course structure and move them to the Technical Program and only offer one or two.
Successes
- Poster Sessions – NEW this year, AEG went electronic for the first time for the poster presentations. The posters were separated into 5 sessions Wednesday and Thursday. We had four concurrent electronic monitors for the presentations. In addition, we will have two iPad stations for attendees to view all of the posters on their own. We concluded the poster presentations on Thursday evening with a Poster Reception. All presenters were given 10 minutes to present their poster at the reception. We awarded three cash prizes ($250, $175, $75) for the top three vote recipients. Voting was conducted exclusively through the Guidebook app. One suggestion was to move the reception portion back to degrease the noise level and make sure to use full screen.
- Location – Great downtown location with easy access to restaurants
- Meals – Attendees really enjoyed the meals this year.
- We kept the program on schedule with the new 2 minute transition for speakers. MAC also hosted several speaker snd moderator tips webinars.
- Audio Visual – using the hotel A/V equipment was much improved over previous years and the sessions ran very smoothly.
- Meeting Mobile App was very well received and is gaining excitement each year. It was a great way to organize the event for attendees and they were able to access conference maps easily to find sessions and set up a personalized schedule.
- Field Trips – Field Trips were fairly well attended and enjoyed by the attendees. The leaders did a great job. We recommend not using rental vans in the future.
- Student Luncheon was added for the first time and was very well received.
- Mobile App – Nate Saraceno has done an excellent job with the mobile app and it has been really well received by the attendee We used the app for voting for the Poster Competition and it worked great. We recommend continuing the App and working on increasing awareness and participation.
Suggestions:
- AEG set up a recycling station at all meeting and have a local charity come pick up the cans as a donation.
- Demographic report of the meetings for future planning (Age, Gender, State etc…)
- For 2018 we add some table top displays for a cheaper option for our regular exhibitors
- Sponsor for next year that brings a plotter to print posters onsite.
- We might want to consider using a tour company for tours and take this element out of the Annual Meeting
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2018 Annual Meeting Report – Finalizing the budget, Field Trips, Guest Tours, Short Courses. We received and reviewed and then sent acceptance letter to 296 abstracts submitted for full papers. Six abstracts were rejected. We will reopen the abstract submittal on November 1. The deadline to submit abstracts is now April 1 and the deadline to register in order to be included in the Program With Abstracts is July 1. The EC proposed an addendum to the MOU with IAEG.
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2019 Annual Meeting Report – No Report
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2020 Annual Meeting Report – The contract has been signed for the Portland Marriott Waterfront. Dates were changed to 9/12-9/20/20.
