Message from the CMOS President for August 2018:
It’s All About Stewardship
– By Paul Kushner, Professor, Department of Physics, University of Toronto and CMOS President –
This month I’m thinking back on the 2018 CMOS Congress in Halifax, a great gathering for our community that featured excellent plenaries and sessions, smooth organization, superb facilities, and a welcoming spirit throughout the week. My sincere thanks go out to the Halifax Congress’s volunteer team, under the leadership of Dave Wartman’s Local Arrangements Committee and Clark Richards’ Scientific Organizing Committee. Their tremendous effort shows what can happen when foresight, hard work, dedication, and team spirit come together in support of a complex undertaking.
Thinking about CMOS Halifax 2018 brings me back to one of our primary themes of stewardship this year – strengthening CMOS’s financial position. As previously pointed out by Past Presidents Martin Taillefer and Wayne Richardson, our yearly fiscal deficits ($28,254 in 2016 and $59,712 in 2017, see the Annual Review for 2017) continue a trend that is draining our reserves and limiting our work to keep CMOS relevant. Wayne told you last year about tightening up CMOS’s operations, and this year we’re reviewing the financing of the annual congress, which is one of our main revenue sources. Going beyond finances, we need to address how the congresses operate and how we measure success. Our working group will come back with recommendations for CMOS Council in the coming months. We need your feedback on the future of CMOS Congresses and welcome your input.
(Speaking about congresses: don’t forget to plan for the IUGG Congress in Montréal, July 8-18 2019! CMOS, with CGU, will be co-hosting the meeting, is counting on a good revenue stream from it, and will be holding key annual activities like the banquet there. Save the date!)
In the coming months I’d like to talk to you about the other themes of stewardship we’re focusing on this year. First, we’re working on CMOS’s advocacy for our research community. To get the conversation started, take a look at Evidence for Democracy’s submission to the Parliamentary Finance Committee in advance of the 2019 federal budget, which included input from the CMOS Special Interest Group on Atmosphere Related Research in Canadian Universities (CMOS ARRCU-SIG). Second, we’re thinking about how CMOS might address sustainability issues around anthropogenic global warming. We’ll be talking about opportunities that society has missed, serious impacts we’re starting to see, and future opportunities for addressing global warming. I’d love to hear your thoughts!
As always, feel free to contact me at president@cmos.ca.
Sincerely,
Paul Kushner
Professor, Department of Physics, University of Toronto
Email address until June 13: vice-president@cmos.ca
Email address after June 13: president@cmos.ca
Tel: 416-946-3683