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<< back to the 1999 archive listing << Dairy, Food and Environmental Sanitation Commentary From The Executive Director Take time to look at the accomplishments of the Association While preparing for this year's Annual Meeting in Dearborn, we normally take time to look at the accomplishments of the Association since the last Annual Meeting. In doing so, there was quite a list and I thought it would be appropriate to share part of it with you at this time. If you attended the Business Meeting on August 2, this will be old news to you. If you were unable to attend the Business Meeting, the following information is provided for your benefit. To begin with, we of course completed the 1998 IAMFES Annual Meeting with a record number of attendees. We had 1,152 attend our 85th Annual Meeting in Nashville and had close to 90 attend our pre-meeting workshops. Our Committees, Professional Development Groups and Task Forces met and had many timely recommendations for the Executive Board to consider. At the 1998 Business Meeting, it was announced that Membership dues would remain the same if you paid your dues within 30 days of the invoice date. We have seen an excellent response to this program and the Executive Board recently voted to continue with the same structure through August of 2000. Therefore, no dues increase for two years in a row! Another announcement in 1998 had to do with our shipping methods for journals
mailed outside of North America. In September, we began using a contractor who
airlifts mail to countries outside of North America. When the journals arrive
in the country (or continent) of delivery, the journals join the regular, surface
mail system. This has allowed our journals to be delivered around the globe
in 10 to 15 days, a vast improvement over the three to five months with our
old shipping method. Beginning with the January issue of the Journal of Food Protection, a new printer was utilized. We were quite happy with our previous printer, but the new printer offered many benefits. The one that really sold us, was the ability of the printer to place the table of contents and abstracts for each issue of the journal on the Internet and link to our Web site. Speaking of the Web site, it continues to grow with new information being added weekly. In January, we launched a total re-make of the Web site growing from approximately 10 pages to more than 40 pages of information. Now there are up to 100 pages! Included are the table of contents for Dairy, Food and Environmental Sanitation, the President's and my monthly column, Annual Meeting information (including an updated program), Audiovisual Library listing with an order form, and of course a Membership application form. If you haven't visited the IAMFES Web site for a while, please do so; I'm certain you will be impressed. There are too many pages of information available at www.iamfes.org to list here! Last fall, we co-sponsored and worked in conjunction with the Food Microbiology Committee of the International Life Sciences Institute on a conference "National Food Safety Initiative: Implications for Microbial Data Collection, Analysis, and Application." There were about 250 attendees at this conference. We were thrilled to be a part of this three-day presentation and hope to repeat the success again in the future. This past April, we presented a Workshop in Washington, D.C. titled "An Insider's Look at Microbial Risk Assessment" and had 35 participants. Another success that we have experienced over the past year is a growth in Membership. I believe the Web site has brought our Association to the attention of interested persons around the world that might not have been able to learn about IAMFES otherwise. We have seen a great number of new Members submitting Membership Applications that were downloaded from the IAMFES Web site. We hope to see this trend continue! Of course Membership continues to grow because of the efforts of so many of our active Members. Please share with your colleagues the many benefits of your IAMFES Membership and encourage them to join and become actively involved in YOUR Association. Although this is just a short summary of our accomplishments since our last Annual Meeting, I hope you can see that IAMFES Members, Executive Board, and our staff continue to do all we can to "Advance Food Safety Worldwide." |