Zimin,  I have talked to Alex about it.
I don't think that the additional seminars  will crowd out the brown bag lunches.
The seminars are really targeted to people who recently joined the group and have very limited, or zero, exposure to energy markets.
For most members of the group it should be the piece of cake.
Brown bag  lunches are not that time intensive, except for the speaker.
Plus, we ran out of days  available for lunch meetings.
Vince

Friday Brown Bag Lunch on Option Pricing