Mike,
My man on the inside at EK says he asked an HR contact about the year expiration and the current delays with course dates for the poolies. Apparently it's been discussed within HR and the general consensus at the moment is that a lot of time, effort and $$ were put into the poolies. Therefore, the 12 months will be probably be waived. However, how long you get over the 12 months is anyone's guess....1 month, 2, etc.
My clock has 8 months to run but if we end up talking about an Apr/May course date, it'll be bloody close.