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Food Protection Trends COMMENTARY from the Executive Director “ We hope to build IAFP into
an
association serving
a more International audience ” Recently, I corresponded with a former IAFP Member from Europe and I thought you would find some very interesting reading if I were to excerpt from the correspondence. I will leave out the former Member’s name because that is not what is important. What is important is the “image” that IAFP has within Europe and Internationally. Please read on. Former Member, I was looking up your Member record in working with… and found that your Membership expired in March of 2006. Was this an oversight or did you knowingly let your Membership lapse? If the first, you may renew online at: www.foodprotection.org. If you did want to let your Membership lapse, I would be interested in the reason(s). Regards, I fully expected to receive back a reply of, “I am sorry, I did overlook my renewal. Things have been very busy, but I will take care of it this week.” Well, I was surprised to receive the following: Dear David, I actually did let my IAFP membership lapse, and I’ll be frank about the reason. It is because I do not see clear evidence that the Association is truly “International”. The members of the Exec-utive Committee are predom-inantly located in North America. The Scientific Editors of the JFP are all US academics (there was an opening for a new editor a couple of years ago, which was a good opportunity to expand the geographical representation, but it went to yet another US member). The Editorship of Food Protection Trends is wholly North American. The Annual Meetings are all held in North America (mostly in the US). Really, the name of the Association could be changed to the North American AFP, and no-one would see the difference. In the nearly 9 years I have been involved with the Association, I have seen no real effort towards expanding its organisation outside North America. OK, it has held some small meetings in Europe, but these have been fairly limited, and quite parochial, in scope. This is further disappointing, because when I have attended the Annual Meetings I have always been impressed by the scale and content – they are outstanding conferences. But until I see a real effort towards more involvement, in the organisation of the Association, of workers from [outside] the North American continent, I will be reluctant to renew my membership… Regards, I hesitated to make a reply for fear of further upsetting our former Member, but the more I thought about it and the more I discussed it with our office staff, I changed my mind to believe I should substantiate our International progress for our former Member’s review. I could also provide some background that would be beneficial for review. So, I prepared a rather lengthy reply and preceded it with an apology for making the reply so long, but I wanted to address each item of concern. Below is a shortened version of my reply. Former Member, Thank you for your very direct comments. I am glad you took time to share them with me. … I’m not sure how much you knew about IAFP and our financial condition over the years you were a Member, so let me start there. IAFP has never faced problems with cash flow or its ability to pay obligations, but when we looked at the General Fund (operating fund) for the Association, we were at a negative fund balance. This meant if we were to close up the assoc-iation, we would not be able to pay all obligations and return unused member dues to the membership. … We are making progress, have a positive fund balance, and are in much better health than we were five years ago! The reason I start with our finances is that this background affected all of IAFP’s long-term plans including our International involvement. Because we were “on the edge” financially, the IAFP Board was not willing to take risks that could adversely impact the financial health of the organization. …decisions over the past 5 to 8 years included our efforts to hold conferences or symposia outside of the USA. Once the decision was made to hold the symposium in 2005, it was done in conjunction with ILSI Europe to increase the chance for success and to decrease the overall financial exposure. Having held a successful first symposium in Prague (2005) (even though it was small, with just 70 attendees), we felt it was to our advantage to continue the symposium series in 2006 (in Barcelona). This effort was quite successful and attendance grew to 140 along with eleven sponsors and 18 exhibitors. Our second year proved to be financially successful as we broke even on the event. …the Board has now committed to holding a yearly event in Europe along with organizing an event annually somewhere else in the world. These are rather bold steps for an Association of our size, even though in the whole, world-wide scheme of things they are rather small. Our first event (non-European and non-North American) will be this September in China. We are partnering with an event organizer in China, World Services, Ltd. and will assist by providing program content and speakers. By doing so, we hope to expand our reach to food microbiologist and food safety professionals in China and Asia-Pacific. For 2008, our sights are set on Brazil for our “International Symposium.” …I always found it strange that we were an International association since 1911, but we had not held scientific meetings or events outside of North America. From your input, I can see you share this viewpoint. … we hope to build IAFP into an association serving a more International audience. …we must do this in a planned out, methodical manner so as to always protect IAFP’s Member assets. Before concluding this reply, I do want to address the International nature of our publications. The Journal of Food Protection published 430 research papers in volume 69 (2006). Of those papers, 47 percent were authored outside of North A merica . Spain, Italy, Japan, Unite d Kingdom , Greece and Korea were the leading countries of origin ... When looking at the 2007 Editorial Board for JFP ; we find that 28 of 150 participants are from outside of North America (or 19%). Our Membership is made up of about 10% to 11% International Members (outside of North America) along with about 8% Canadian or Mexican Members. So, the Editorial Board is well represented by those outside of North America … …Now if we look at the Food Protection Trends Editorial Board, I agree with you that we need to increase our International representation (and Canadian or Mexican representation). Currently, we have only 3 out of 45 from outside of North America (7%) and none from Canada or Mexico. I’m sure when this is expressed to our Scientific Editor, we will be adding [International Members] to our Editorial Board. Now, I believe the last issue you raised is the make up of our Executive Board. True, it is mostly North American, but we do have representation from Brazil this year in Maria Teresa Destro, our Affiliate Council Chairperson. You may or may not know during our 2006 Secretary Election; Leon Gorris from the United Kingdom was a candidate. Unfortunately for our International efforts, Leon was not elected by the IAFP Membership at the time. Soon, I am willing to bet we will have a Board Officer from outside of North America! Similar to electing the first woman to the IAFP Executive Board (Ann Draughon, President 1996), sadly, these things take time to evolve. I hope this has helped to provide perspective to your thoughts about IAFP. We realize other people; both Members and non-members along with potential Members share your concerns. We want to satisfy our Members while attracting new Members and we work hard as an organization to provide solid, science-based information to allow food safety professionals “around the world” to do their best in protecting the world’s food supply. Your input and ideas for additional IAFP International involvement are welcome. Please feel free to forward any ideas you have to me. We hope you will again see the value of being an IAFP Member and that you will join with us to be an active IAFP Member in the near future! Best regards, As I said, my reply was rather long but I felt it was important to point out our recent International progress. A day or two later, I was elated to receive this reply: David, Thank you very much for your open response to my comments. I now have a clearer picture of the situation. I take your point about being planned out and methodical; I guess expansion will take some time, but is achievable in the long term. From the … Europe end, I will encourage my colleagues to attend the Annual Meetings. I hope we will also be able to grow our membership, and thus expand our range of activities. I will look forward to this year’s Annual Meeting in Orlando; the preliminary program looks excellent! I will also renew my full membership at the earliest opportunity. Best Wishes, Not always do things turn out this way, but our “Former Member” had a legitimate concern about IAFP and expressed an opinion. The “Former Member” read my response with an open mind and decided that IAFP was making progress in the International food safety arena. We were so happy to receive the reply that our “Former Member” will now be an active IAFP Member once again! If you have questions about IAFP or our operations, do not hesitate to contact me or anyone at the IAFP office. We will always respond to your questions and provide a prompt reply. Thanks for your continued Membership!
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