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<< back to the 1999 archive listing << Dairy, Food and Environmental Sanitation Commentary From The Executive Director "What additional services could be offered by the Association to make
your Membership more valuable?" Last month in this column, we reviewed the results of the Member survey as it related to the proposed name change. Today, I would like to expand on answers received when the following question was asked, "What additional services could be offered by the Association to make your Membership more valuable?" As you might imagine, a wide range of responses was received, but there were some common themes. Four common topics related to (1) holding regional seminars or workshops, (2) improved Web site offerings, (3) assistance with employment searches, and (4) content of Dairy, Food and Environmental Sanitation (DFES). Many of the responses to the question were about DFES, and understandably so. DFES is our monthly communication tool to keep IAMFES Members informed about Association news and to provide articles of interest to our diverse Membership. Comments ranged from wanting more technical information to less theory; from having practical application articles and Members' experience type of articles to presenting more dairy research; and from covering regulatory issues to publishing food safety articles in everyday language (no charts, graphs or tables). As you can see, these responses indicate a variety of readers with a variety of interests and that translates into our diversity of Members! The comments regarding DFES and our publications are certainly timely, but they need further study before changing the direction of DFES. We continually strive to offer articles with a variety of topics to appeal to a Membership with broad interests. We are also quite interested in receiving articles for publication that address the needs of our Members and we welcome your submission of manuscripts for consideration for publication. Another area of interest for our Members is the ability to receive additional
educational opportunities in addition to the Annual Meeting. Regional seminars
and workshops were mentioned often in the responses. This is an area we have
studied and we are attempting to increase our offerings. In the past couple
of years, we offered a stand-alone workshop on HACCP resources in two locations.
Last fall, we were heavily involved with the ILSI Conference for Microbial Data
Collection, Analysis, and Application. Currently, an IAMFES workshop is scheduled
for April 12 and 13 in Washington, D.C. It is titled, "An Insider's Look
at Microbial Risk Assessment." We are working to expand our educational
offerings to enable us to reach out to IAMFES Members who are looking for additional
learning opportunities. Your input for course offerings is welcome. If you have
ideas and/or The IAMFES Web site was mentioned frequently in responses. "More information on the Web site" was one request. If you haven't visited the Web site recently, please stop by at www.iamfes.org for a new look. Early in January, we uploaded an entirely, re-worked Web site. There is more than four times the amount of information about IAMFES on the site now than was previously available. Information about the Association, our Annual Meeting, workshops, journals, Membership and more! Please take time to look it over and refer a colleague to the Web site to learn more about IAMFES. We will continue to make additions and improvements to the Web site as time and resources are available to do so. It is a great resource for Members around the globe to be able to obtain information 24 hours a day. Another topic that came up more than once was for IAMFES to offer assistance in employment searches. This is an area that we can make improvements on and options have been discussed. Currently, we offer to place advertisements in DFES at no charge for individual Members who are searching for employment. Employers searching to fill positions may place advertisements in DFES, but must pay for the ad space. We hope to expand our ability to assist both employers and Members looking to fill positions and find positions through our Web site. We have some details to work out before we are ready to move this direction, but for timeliness of information, the Web site can't be beat! I hope this summary gives you additional insight to IAMFES Members and their
thoughts. The Executive Board is always looking for ways that we can improve
our offerings to Members that help us meet our mission of "Providing food
safety professionals worldwide with a forum to exchange information on protecting
the food supply." The diversity of IAMFES Members is shown by the many
Now, I would be remiss if I didn't point out that the preliminary program for the IAMFES 86th Annual Meeting is printed in this issue of DFES. Please take time to review the program and make your plans now to be in attendance this year in Dearborn, Michigan. The program is excellent and all encompassing for issues of food safety and the latest scientific advances in food microbiology. Our sincere thanks to Jeffrey Farber, Program Committee Chairperson and to this year's Committee Members who devoted their expertise and many hours of their time to assemble the program. We look forward to seeing you this August in Dearborn! |