Food Protection Trends

COMMENTARY from the executive director
April 2005

“As this year progresses, watach for further information about how you can help the Foundation grow to meet its goal of $1 million by 2010”
By David W. Tharp, IAFP Executive Director

There are two topics that I want to review with you this month and both have a direct impact on the IAFP Annual Meeting. First, I will cover the topic of recording symposia and technical sessions during the Annual Meeting. And secondly, I want to review a meeting that was held to inspire growth in the IAFP Foundation Fund.

Over the years, there has been a lot of interest in IAFP recording sessions at the Annual Meeting. We even surveyed attendees at IAFP 2004 to find their interest in obtaining such recordings and asked whether attendees would be interested if the recordings were provided free (to attendees) or at a cost. We found that there was substantial interest in this endeavor. Unfortunately we also found that there was a lot of concern about recording sessions limiting the candid discussions that take place at IAFP symposia and technical sessions. Therefore, the IAFP Executive Board decided that at the present time, we will not record sessions at the IAFP Annual Meeting.

The undertaking of recording sessions at the IAFP Annual Meeting would be a huge project in itself and one that would stretch both our staff and symposia convenors. This aside, the IAFP Executive Board, acting on the advice received from our Program Committee made a decision that we would not record sessions at IAFP Annual Meetings. The main consideration in arriving at this decision was that it was felt that the presenters would be limited in their ability to deliver their presentation openly and frankly. In some cases it was even felt that the presenter may have to “read from a script” rather than delivering their presentation “from memory” or talking with the audience.

In addition to limiting the presenter, it was felt that questions from audience members may be restricted knowing that the audience member was being recorded. The Program Committee and the Executive Board discussed this topic at length during their meeting in late January. They could see the potential advantages to providing recordings, but they saw the factor of limiting open and honest discussion as an overriding factor.

The Board did agree to look at this situation down the road. It is just that the sessions will not be recorded this year (2005) and most likely in 2006. After that, we will take another look to see if the situation has changed.

Now let’s review the Foundation Fund meeting report. Last October, the Foundation Fund Committee met via teleconference. Many topics were discussed, but one in particular was to establish a sub-committee to work towards developing a DVD presentation and supporting print materials. Due to the generosity of Frank Yiannas and Walt Disney World, the sub-committee met at the end of February at Disney World. Frank provided a communications professional and a production company professional to assist the sub-committee in their developmental process.

Progress was made in refining the mission statement for the IAFP Foundation and in developing an overall “marketing plan” for the Foundation. The group spent many hours discussing who the target audience will be, how to best present the Foundation’s message and on a developmental timeline. The biggest hurdle to producing this DVD is that relevant video footage needs to be generated and the best place to do this is at an IAFP Annual Meeting. This pushed our timeline for completing the DVD project to after IAFP 2005.

Even at that, there was a great deal of enthusiasm for the project. Once the DVD project is completed, a marketing effort will take place to generate interest in providing support to the IAFP Foundation. Foundation Fund Committee Members will make personal visits to potential contributing companies to solicit donations. Contribution requests will continue to be made to IAFP Members who have provided a great deal of support over the years.

We want to thank Gale Prince, Paul Hall, Susan Sumner, Stan Bailey and Frank Yiannas for taking time from their schedules to meet on this extremely meaningful project. We view this as a long-term endeavor and one that we have just begun to fabricate the building blocks. As this year progresses, watch for further information about how you can help the Foundation grow to meet its goal of $1 million by 2010. With your help, it can be done!