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 Alberta Chemist
 
  The Newsletter of the ACPA 
   Issue 02-11December 2011   
In This Issue
Message from Your President
New ACPA Website Launched
Group Rates for Insurance
Professional Development
Second Short Course on Scaling
ACPA and IYC
Job Board
Quick Links...

 

Happy Holidays!

This issue of Alberta Chemist presents announcements of the launching of our new website (with online membership renewal and payment capabilities), group rates(!) for various kinds of personal and commercial insurance, upcoming courses, job opportunities and more. Happy Holidays!

 

Message from Your President 

Kathy Janzen

 

Dear fellow ACPA members,

 

The year 2011 has seen many changes for the ACPA.

 

Have you visited our new website at www.pchem.ca? It has a new look and lots of great information about your professional association. ACPA members now have website accounts that allow them to register for courses, renew their memberships, pay by credit card, and submit PDC forms conveniently on line.

 

We are also delighted to introduce two different insurance programs for our members. First, reduced group rates for personal home and auto insurance are now available to ACPA members through TD Insurance Meloche Monnex. Second, very attractive rates for professional errors and omissions insurance as well as general liability and environmental liability insurance are now available through Christie Phoenix. Details for both programs will be mailed to you in your renewal packages and are also available on Membership Benefits page on our website.

 

Thanks to the hard work of Ken Schmidt, the rest of the technical seminar committee and the volunteer course instructors, the ACPA presented two successful short courses on the chemistry of scaling this year. The proceeds from these courses are expected to allow the ACPA to break even financially for 2011.

 

Red Deer meeting 2011 in progress
ACPA planning meeting in progress, Red Deer College, Oct. 2011.

 

In October, the Board of Directors had a landmark planning meeting in Red Deer with guests from industry, academia (including Dr. Peter Kusalik, Chair of the Chemistry Department at the U of Calgary) and chemistry student representatives from across the province. It was an exciting opportunity to work together to enhance the profession of chemistry! Many thanks to Alan Racey, Chemistry Instructor at Red Deer College, for his help in organizing the venue once again.

 

Red Deer meeting 2011 group photo
Participants in the Red Deer meeting.

 

Two of our student volunteers from the University of Lethbridge have set up ACPA Facebook and LinkedIn pages, so you can now keep up with the ACPA news and meet other chemists through these media. I encourage you to visit and sign up. Thanks, Breanne Kamenz and Andrea Millen!

 

For the first time in the history of our Association, we have had the benefit of a part-time Executive Director. Former Board member Stan Backs has filled in while a job description and a legal framework for the contract were being developed. Stan has worked many hours on our website, the insurance deals, the short courses, ACPA/IYC pins, a brochure and gifts for graduating BSc students, meetings and so on. Now we are finally in a position to advertise for an official Executive Director. If you know someone who would serve well in this job, please encourage them to apply through our ACPA office.

 

We are looking forward to a busy spring, as the CSC2012 conference will be held in Calgary from May 26-30. I'm sure that many of you will be attending, presenting or volunteering, so please feel free to drop by the ACPA booth in the exhibition hall.

 

On behalf of your Board of Directors, I wish you all a very Merry Christmas, safe travels over the holidays and a prosperous New Year.
 

Kathy Janzen

President, ACPA
 


New ACPA Website Launched

 

We have recently launched a newly reorganized and updated version of the ACPA website at www.pchem.ca. Important changes include

  • online application for membership or membership renewal, with payment by credit card
  • online completion and submission of PDC forms
  • a "members only" menu, which contains these forms and other member-related pages
  • online registration for events such as short courses or meetings
  • electronic input of data from online forms into our databases, eliminating the need for manual inputting data submitted on paper
  • online submission of career opportunities to the Job Board

Please feel free to take advantage of these new services when you renew your membership for 2012. For those of you with colleagues eligible for ACPA membership, please let them know that they can now apply online.

 

Please note that if you are a member in good standing, your account has already been created automatically. All you need to do is recover your default password and then log in. (Conversely, non-members must create a new account before they can apply for membership or register for an event.) Thereafter, you will be able to gain access just by entering your e-mail address and your password.

 

Any information you provide via our website will be handled according to our strict privacy policy, which can be viewed at the "Privacy Policy" link on the bottom right of each web page.

 

Many thanks to AgileStyle for their patience and hard work in designing and programming our revamped website. Many thanks as well to ACPA webmaster Eugene Dakin for his ongoing help and advice in this project. 

 


ACPA Group Rates for Insurance

Home, Auto and Travel Insurance:  TD Insurance Meloche Monnex has formed an alliance with the ACPA to provide our members with group rates on home, apartment, condo, travel and auto insurance.

 

Errors and Omissions, General Liability and Environmental Liability Insurance:  Christie Phoenix (a broker for Lloyd's of London) has agreed to provide ACPA members with group rates on errors and omissions, general liability and environmental liability insurance.

 

Please visit the Membership Benefits page on our website to get more details and to obtain quotes on the coverage you need.


Professional Development

  1. Environmental Compliance Course (Edmonton), July 25, 2012: The Edmonton Waste Management Centre of Excellence (EWMCE) will present a one-day course on complying with Alberta legislation regarding wastewater treatment.
     
  2. Aboveground Storage Tanks (Calgary) March 19-20, 2012: EPIC Chemical Seminars will present a two-day course covering the design, selection, installation, operation and maintenance of such tanks, including inspection procedures, cleaning, corrosion control and safety.
    In 2012, watch for announcements of two new ACPA courses:
  • A course on ethics for professional chemists developed in conjunction with the Canadian Society for Chemistry and to be presented at the upcoming CSC2012 conference in Calgary.
     
  • A course on flow assurance in pipelines and petrochemical plants to be developed and presented by experts from Schlumberger: Kamran Akbarzadeh, Ph.D., P.Eng., and Abdel M. Kharrat, Ph.D. P.Chem.

Second ACPA Short Course on the Chemistry of Scaling

Maurice Shevalier (U. of Calgary) presenting a lecture
at the Edmonton short course on the chemistry of scaling.

 

The ACPA ran a second highly successful two-day short course on the chemistry of scaling, this time in Edmonton on November 2 and 3. The same course had been presented previously in Calgary late last winter.

 

The net income from these two courses has allowed the ACPA to provide extra services to our members and take on new initiatives without incurring a deficit for 2011.

  
International Year of Chemistry
 
[Sidebar text and photo courtesy of the Red Deer Advocate.]

 

With IYC funding from nine different sources, including the ACPA, Dr. Lucio Gelmini of Grant MacEwan University travelled to ten communities across Alberta to provide dramatic chemistry demonstrations at dozens of schools. In total, he taught about 9800 students that chemistry is all around us, showing them some of the relationships of chemistry to energy, the environment and health.

He also did about 60 more demonstrations in the Edmonton area at his own expense, reaching a further 8000 students. Thank you, Lucio!

  
Job Board

Career opportunities are listed on the Job Board page on the ACPA website. Please check this web page regularly for new postings that may have tight application deadlines. Current postings include the following:

(1) Part-time Executive Director - Association of the Chemical Profession of Alberta (Edmonton). Competition will remain open until the position is filled.

(2) Environmental Site Assessment Consultant- Strathcona Real Property Services (Edmonton). Competition will remain open until the position is filled.

Job advertisements are posted on the ACPA website for a three-month period. A $100 fee is charged for this service, but this fee will be waived for advertisements submitted by ACPA members in good standing (Professional Chemists or Chemists-in-Training) on behalf of their organizations. Ads may be e-mailed directly to the ACPA office or may be submitted online using the Submit a Job button at the bottom of the ACPA home page.
 

This issue of Alberta Chemist was edited by Stan J. Backs, P.Chem. (www.synchrocomm.ca). The content of this newsletter is provided only as an information service to members. Inclusion of any information does not represent official positions, opinions or support of the editor, the Association of the Chemical Profession of Alberta (ACPA), or its Officers, Directors, or staff members. The information is collected from a variety of sources and is circulated to the membership as information only. The editor and the ACPA do not guarantee that all submissions will be circulated and are not responsible for the accuracy of any information provided.

ACPA Office
P.O. Box 21017
Edmonton, AB  T6R 2V4
Phone: 780-413-0004
Fax: 780-413-0076
E-mail: acpaoffice(AT)pchem.ca