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<< back to the 2002 archive listing << Dairy, Food and Environmental Sanitation Commentary From The Executive Director The lifeblood of the Association depends on IAFP adapting to the ever-changing
needs of our Membership This is an exciting time to be a Member of the International Association for Food Protection! This month, allow me to update you about a few of the major initiatives that we presently have underway. European Symposium — We have discussed holding a symposium in Europe sometime later in 2003. You may have read about this in prior reports or heard about this exciting opportunity at previous Annual Meetings. What we have in mind is a 1 and 1/2 day to 2 and 1/2 day symposium focusing on one or two topics affecting food safety and food science. We are attempting to provide a forum for our European Members to gather around the IAFP banner to network and discuss food safety. It is important to note that this symposium is not intended to replace the IAFP Annual Meeting, but it is intended to supplement our mission. For those Members not residing in Europe let it be known that everyone is welcome to attend! Watch for more details as time progresses, we are tentatively scheduling this symposium for October of 2003. International Food Safety Icons — The Retail Food Safety Professional Development Group is about to launch a series of icons that can be used to assist employees in safe food handling practices in many retail establishments preparing and serving food. It is projected that these icons will be available during the first quarter of 2003. We anticipate providing the icons for free download at the IAFP Web site along with having a package of stickers and posters available at a reasonable cost. These icons will help remind employees of safe food handling and the best part is that they are easily interpreted by all nationalities (i.e., you do not need to speak or understand English to understand the icons). JFP Online — By the end of the year, our current project of adding the 2001 volume of the Journal of Food Protection to our online offerings should be completed. We are excited to have two complete volumes of the Journal of Food Protection available for your online use. JFP Online offers searchable articles, free access to abstracts, access to articles (for Members opting for this service), and linked references for easy reference researching. This is a service that many Members have asked for and now have the opportunity to use. Please contact our office if you have any questions about JFP Online. Food Protection Trends — As we have discussed, Dairy, Food and Environmental Sanitation will change names to Food Protection Trends with the January 2003 issue. This change will offer IAFP expanded opportunity to extend our audience of Members and readers. It became even more obvious to me recently at the USDA conference for food safety educators. Bev Corron and I were there to display IAFP’s journals and information and to visit with attendees about the services offered by IAFP. When we showed DFES, we had to explain the contents to attendees with long explanations. After concluding the explanation, we mentioned that the journal name was changing to Food Protection Trends, their level of interest magnified. I don’t think that either Bev or I were prepared for this reaction. We were also impressed by the interest that attendees had in IAFP’s materials and hope to see many new Members from this conference. So there you have a synopsis of some of the major projects and undertakings. We are moving forward but also must be very cautious of our budget constraints. The lifeblood of the Association depends on IAFP adapting to the ever-changing needs of our Membership. We must continually be flexible enough to add new services that our Members want. |