APEGA reheats branch luncheons as online learning opportunity

Remember when lunch at work meant a trip to the food court with colleagues? Or gathering in a packed conference centre with a plated meal, sharing a table with other professional engineers and geoscientists?

Those days may be on hold for now, but APEGA members can continue learning through lunch and earning their continuing professional development hours online while warming up their leftovers at home.

On March 26, APEGA’s Calgary Branch took its luncheon event—Pioneering Alberta's First Conventional Geothermal Energy Facility—online, and accepted registrants from across the province. Not only did event organizers see a jump in attendance, but the guest speaker, Terrapin Geothermics, was able to bring in more technical experts to discuss how geothermal technology innovations now provides electricity on a massive scale right here in Alberta.

“I’m hoping that this success makes more webinars available to our satellite branches around the province,” says Ashley Pessell, APEGA’s Southern Alberta branch coordinator. “Going online allows us to get better speakers without incurring additional costs such as venues or travel. If our Medicine Hat Branch wants to bring in a guest speaker, they don’t have to consider the cost of travel as a barrier anymore.”

More webinars coming to your computer this summer

Other APEGA branches are also taking advantage of the currently remote workforce. The Lakeland Branch recently hosted a Foundations of Investing professional development session online and logged a record attendance of 160 people—more people than the branch has members.

“The biggest barrier we have now is more on the technical side. Some professional members are not as technically advanced as others, so we had a few comments that they couldn’t get the platform to work the way they wanted it to,” says Pessell.

APEGA is working on providing more tools to ensure all members have access to future webinars exclusively through WebEx. You can access free, online courses to learn more about how to use the platform.

Watch the Calgary Branch Luncheon webinar

If you missed the Calgary Branch Luncheon webinar: Pioneering Alberta's First Conventional Geothermal Energy Facility, you can watch it below or on the APEGA YouTube channel.

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