By Max Williamson
FCA PESA Distinguished Member
For and on behalf of the NSW Branch Executive Team
Petroleum Exploration Society of Australia Ltd
NSW Branch
GPO Box 625 Sydney NSW 2001
(Incorporated in WA) A.B.N 12 009 061 278
PESA GAZETTE – BACKGROUND TO RESOLUTION ON RETIRED MEMBERS
Date: 26 May 2025 5.00pm
Place: AGM PESA – Rydges Hotel Southbank
The Motion:
The Annual renewal fee for members who have retired and are not working in a paid role or paid employment be reduced to the sum of $50 per annum starting from renewals after 31 December 2025.
Business:
The members activities of PESA for the over 30 years when I have been a member have been focused on two basic activities:
1/ technical update for student members and for active members; and
2/ networking at branch and Federal level through meetings and gatherings around/during Conferences, social events and site visits.
It is the second at which the Motion is directed.
One very clear lesson that has come to me and many members of the NSW Branch is that we really enjoyed the conviviality, friendship, relations and camaraderie from the years we have worked together in the same companies, the same projects or in the same fields of interest. People enjoy and live closely with others they enjoy spending time with, solve problems and deal with issues over their working lives. This closeness continues well past the time that income arrives in their bank accounts from any form of employment or consulting.
Maybe this is more apparent in NSW compared to other State branches. The closure of company offices, takeovers and moving of staff interstate has impacted on NSW considerably more than other branches, with NSW down to Bridgeport, Beetaloo and Tamboran, plus some other small companies. Gone are the ESSO’s, Roc and Oil Search.
Meaning the loss of oil and gas people earning oil and gas sourced income has been particularly dramatic to the NSW Branch and its members.
The ageing of the PESA membership base is particularly worrying in this context because NSW exemplifies more readily what is happening to PESA and its membership.
Members in the younger age brackets that lose their employment or consulting contracts can go to work in the minerals, quarrying, water industries in Australia, overseas to work where their skills are appreciated or look for working opportunities away in new fields. They invariably have their own networks, often very different to those in the more mature age brackets (eg myself as one common example not just in NSW but Australia wide).
As a follow on, the more mature PESA members are not looking so much for new networks, but how to solidify their existing networks is more of paramount importance. Believe it or not, 60 and 70 year old PESA members have massive amounts of common interest and they want to find ways to keep those ties together. Those that have bound them together through their working careers, will bind them again post-retirement.
In effect the Motion was directed at PESA setting up a process that would establish a two-tier structure for members. Those PESA members that needed technical update would attend the monthly technical meetings, Conferences, seminars and in-house training sessions. Those retired persons, who were not so driven to receive technical update, would attend retired persons networking events that would be managed and promoted through PESA and controlled via the website booking facilities.
The retired persons through this route would stay connected to each other and to PESA.
What is happening is that once this retired class of persons finds they have so many things to do with family, friends and social club partners, with a lessening of interest in PESA they simply drop out of PESA, seen only again on some reunion event, down at the golf course or similar. The reality is PESA has lost membership and good people, experienced people who otherwise would be contributing to the oil and gas industry or to the people of the industry.
People make life so much more interesting than statistics, bank account balances and websites. The motion was never about money, lost revenue to PESA or to a reducing bank account. As at 31 December 2024 PESA had $1.3 million in cash and liquid securities such as term deposits. The membership of PESA has reduced in my period as a member from over 1,800 active members to 886 as at 30 April 2025. The present methods/systems/Boards for managing PESA have prioritised maintenance of the cash position to the detriment of membership, both active and retired.
Some will say that the Global Financial Crisis, COVID and the present Government attitudes to the oil and gas industry through their climate change policies have had an impact on PESA membership and employment/contractors in the oil and gas industry. That simple statement has to be correct, but as to how much of an impact and does that mean PESA leaves all those people now without jobs or contracts as a consequence of those events without networking support when they reach their retiring age?
What is significant is the statistic of over 5,700 persons who have or are still members of PESA in our available database. If we exclude an estimate for deceased members and those that have left the Industry or transferred overseas of say a total 1700, a remainder is 4000. This means that there are potentially retrievable retired persons in that lost 3,114 persons (i.e. 4,000 less the 886) list that could be attracted back to a retired persons networking group, especially if we could provide a heavily discounted membership rate of $50 per annum.
Of the 886 members of PESA calculated on a national basis, there are 84 retired persons (paying $120 per annum to renew), 28 students (paying nothing to renew) and 774 active members.
At this stage of PESA’s involvement with our other oil and gas not for profit bodies and associations such as SPE and ASEG, we invite members of those other bodies to our events at member rates. What is happening is that people recognise this scenario and decide they only need to be a member of one of the friendly not for profit bodies; meaning they chose to drop out of PESA because they can attend events run by PESA without having to pay the annual renewal subscription by retaining membership of one body, probably the cheapest.
In the event the Motion had been passed by members at the AGM, the financial cost to PESA would have been around $5,880 (being 84 members at $120 less the $50). Remember PESA has $1.3 million in the liquid securities and cash.
As the membership of PESA will get one year older at 31 December 2025, there will be more persons moving into the retired persons category for renewal, so maybe the reduction in renewal fees would be around $6,500 (i.e. less than half of one percent of cash and liquid securities).
However in the renewals due in January/February 2026 if half of the 84 persons plus maybe another 20 PESA members drop out, the loss to PESA would amount to $7,440 (being 62 person at $120 each).
CONCLUSIONS
By reducing the renewal rate for retiring members to $50, PESA is likely to be better off cash wise than what PESA would be if they kept the retired persons rate at $120. A renewed effort to get some of those 3114 presently lost members back into the fold as retired members at $50 would make that positive cash position even greater.
It would be basic human resource and time allocation principles that if we could get back members from the lost list and/or stop retiring members from dropping out, then PESA will benefit by seeing the retirees at their own networking events, but also at traditional monthly meetings if at a lesser rate than at the special networking events.
Now that the Motion was lost at the AGM, the Board now has a larger task to address the issue of retired persons and their ongoing involvement with PESA. The NSW Branch strongly encourage the Board to be bold in its efforts to address the fall off in members at both the active and retired member levels.
Max Williamson
FCA PESA Distinguished Member
For and on behalf of the NSW Branch Executive Team
