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Food Protection Trends COMMENTARY from the Executive Director “We want to welcome Vickie Lewandowski
to the Executive Board and thank Leon Gorris
for standing for election ” This month on page 319, we announce the results of our Secretary election. You will see that Vickie Lewandowski received the majority of votes cast and therefore will take office as Secretary upon the conclusion of IAFP 2006. We welcome Vickie to the Executive Board and congratulate her on the success she has enjoyed in the election. We also want to express our gratitude to Leon Gorris who was not elected, but was eager to serve and more than willing to stand for election. Many Members will recognize that Leon is our first Member from outside of North America to stand for election to the Executive Board. We are proud to be an International organization and look forward to the day when we have our first elected, International Board Member. We wish Leon all successes in the future! As a note, we will welcome Maria Teresa Destro to the Executive Board in August as the Affiliate Council Chairperson. Maria Teresa is from São Pãulo, Brazil and will represent the Affiliate Council on the Executive Board. Also note, Maria Teresa was elected to serve in this position by the Affiliate Council Members. Now back to Vickie. By the time you read this column, Vickie will have already participated in our April Board planning session that I talked about in my March column. This will help bring her up to current on future plans and direction for IAFP. As I am writing this column prior to holding our planning session, I cannot report on the outcome of that meeting (watch for a report on the planning session in a future President’s column). In addition, Vickie will also spend two days in June at the IAFP offices for “orientation” to the operations of the Association. This time investment will help provide her with background information needed to make informed decisions that will help guide the Association through her service period on the Executive Board. Serving on the Executive Board is a big commitment. Each of our elected Board Members serves a total of five years on the Board. Those five years only include the “official” time from becoming Secretary until conclusion of serving a year as Past President. As you can see, Vickie is already contribut-ing her time to the Association (beginning in April) and you can confirm with Past Presidents that service to IAFP many times continues for a year or more after leaving the Board. It may sound like a long time, but the time passes very quickly! Needless to say, we are very fortunate to have many Members who are willing to serve on the Executive Board and who possess the expertise to help guide the Association towards the future. For that we are truly thankful. Now I want to change direction and call your attention to the proposed changes to both the IAFP Constitution and the Bylaws. Changes are detailed beginning on page 316 and result from two base issues: (1) establishing an electronic newsletter for IAFP, and (2) to allow electronic voting by IAFP Members. The first issue is brought on by our desire to restructure IAFP Member dues (as explained in my April column). The electronic newsletter will become the “publication” that all Members would receive or have access to with their Membership. Each Member will then decide whether they wish to add FPT, The issue of electronic voting is something that Members have requested over the last few years as it becomes more commonplace to conduct elections via the Internet. Various changes need to be made to our voting process to implement an electronic voting system. Mostly, it involves removing the words “mail” or references to a written or paper ballot from the document. At this time, the Board has directed that our 2007 election continue as a paper ballot and that our 2008 Secretary election would be the first use of the electronic Internet system. The proposed time line will allow ample time for communication to all IAFP Members on this issue. We hope to see Member participation increase dramatically over the roughly 25% of Members who currently vote. The electronic voting system will have many safeguards built in for a secure, online voting experience. We will contract with an outside vendor to conduct the ballot, which removes opport-unity for tampering with voting results. Unique login credentials will be required, an independent results tabulator will be engaged, and a third party direct report to the IAFP Teller will be required in the new system. We take voting privacy and security very seriously and will not do anything to jeopardize a 100% accurate and trusted vote result. If you have any questions after reviewing the proposed amend-ments, please take time to call me.
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