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Oil and gas members needed

The Turner Valley Oilmen's Association is seeking to increase its membership to keep the region's rich oil and gas history alive.
Dingman
The Turner Valley Oilmen's Association is believed to have started around the time the Dingman No. 1 well was discovered in Turner Valley. The association, which is suffering a declining membership, is seeking members working in the oil and gas industry, as well as details about the group preceding 2004.

A handful of oil and gas workers living in the Foothills strive to keep their decades-old association alive, despite the downturn in their industry.

Turner Valley Oilmen's Association president Josh Gawryluk said the non-profit networking and fundraising group seeks to increase its membership throughout the Foothills. The group currently has 15 members, many of whom are retired and no longer active, he said.

“I don’t want to see the oilmen’s group crash and disappear,” he said. “If we don’t get any members in the next couple of years I can see us disappearing and I don’t want that to happen. We know there are oil and gas guys here, we just don’t know how to get ahold of them.”

The Black Diamond resident said the association has dwindled significantly since the oil and gas industry began facing tough times in 2014. Gawryluk has been involved in the oil industry since graduating from university, and currently does technical sales for drilling fluids.

“Everybody in our group has a background in oil and gas,” he said. “The core group of us are young family men with kids. It’s a networking group where we get together, talk about what’s going on in the industry, about the country, get to know each other, lean on each other, become friends, fundraise and donate that to local groups.”

Among the association’s community projects are sponsoring the Royal Canadian Legion Turner Valley Branch children’s Christmas party, providing financial assistance to struggling single mothers and donating funds raised at its June golf tournament to service clubs in the Diamond Valley area, said Gawryluk.

In the past 12 years, the association donated $52,000 to local charities, he said.

“All the money that’s generated gets donated right back to the community,” he said. “We’re looking for some new charities. We want to find local people in need.”

The issues faced by the association are shared with similar group, said Gawryluk.

“Not only do we have a lot less people working in the industry, but the money is not as lucrative as it once was,” he said. “The oil and gas markets, just from 2014 there was 500 rigs working, now we’re 170 in the province. That’s really low right now. Our historical numbers are really low compared to what we’ve been at.”

Another struggle the oilmen’s group is facing is obtaining historical records or documents about the association. While Gawryluk believes it began during the boom in the early part of last century, he said the group doesn’t have any records or historical data preceding 2004.

“I don’t know the original starting date,” he said. “I’m not sure the history of how it started and what they’ve done in the past. I’m sure it’s one of the oldest groups in Alberta, given the history of all the wells that happened here.”

With the threat of discontinuation for the group, this could mean the loss of a big part of the region’s history, said Gawryluk.

“I’m a history buff - I have a passion for history,” he said. “For the history of this place I just want to see this group live on and not disappear, basically.”

Gawryluk said he expects a turnaround in the economy in the not-too-distant future.

“I do have faith that the oil and gas market is going to come back,” he said. “The arguments being made right now, that the Canadian oilpatch can help the world’s environmental picture, is a true story. That being said, it could take 10 years for policies to change. We could increase production by 2 million barrels a day. We would have a local source for oil, but those pipelines could take 10 to 15 years to go through.”

Anyone interested in joining the Turner Valley Oilmen’s Association or who has information about its past can contact Josh Gawryluk at 250-430-1096.

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