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<< back to the 2000 archive listing << Dairy, Food and Environmental Sanitation My Perspective, October 2000 IAFP's Annual Meeting is second to none Now that it's over, I am taking a few moments to reflect on this year's Annual Meeting - and what a meeting it was! We had 1,318 attendees at our meeting in Atlanta, a 16.5% increase over last year. Although the bulk of our attendees (86%) continue to come from the US, 6% came from Canada and 8% came from other countries; we had representatives from 31 countries, including the UK, Finland, China, Korea, South Africa, Mexico, Brazil, and many more! Truly we are an inter-national organization. Speaking of international, let me digress from this year's Annual Meeting to mention that this November we will host our first workshop outside the US and Canada - on November 12 IAFP will sponsor Produce Safety in Latin America - Experiences, Challenges and Impact on Inter-national Trade in Guadalajara, Mexico. This is an area of food safety that has received much attention in the last few years, and because Mexico is a primary exporter of produce to the US, we feel this is an ideal venue for the workshop. The Board is also exploring holding "regional" meetings in international locations to provide opportunities for more of our International Members to participate in Association activities. This year's Annual Meeting program included 320 scientific presentations, including 21 symposia, 60 oral presentations, and 139 poster presentations, covering cutting-edge research and comprehensive overviews. Topics included Listeria monocytogenes, produce safety, food biotechnology, mycotoxins, seafood HACCP strategies, retail foods, risk assessment, issues facing dairy producers and bioterrorism. We kicked off the meeting on August 6 with another first - Dr. Doug Powell of the University of Guelph gave the Ivan Parkin lecture on "Reclaiming Dinner: Enhancing Food Safety and Consumer Confidence" via a video tape which was electronically transmitted after Dr. Powell ran into last minute travel difficulties. This provided a graphic demonstration of what we may be able to do in the future to enhance our program with lectures from world experts who are unable to attend because of scheduling conflicts. This year we had 88 exhibitors (in 97 booth spaces), whose products and services include sanitation supplies, microbiological testing products, books and magazines, testing and auditing services, educational courses, and much, much more. This is the largest number of exhibitors yet for an IAFP meeting. This is another area in which the Association is growing. As might be expected, with the growth we are seeing in the Annual Meeting there are also growing pains. Most notably is finding the type of space we need to host a quality meeting. When I first started going to IAFP (then IAMFES) meetings, there were essentially three concurrent sessions: one dairy, one food, and one environmental. There were few scheduling conflicts, but there were times when none of the sessions was a "gotta-be-there" session. Now, with four or even five concurrent sessions, I find myself wanting to be in several places at once. At the same time, I find the meeting is much more dynamic and I am much more energized and enthusiastic about going each year. I hope you feel the same. There are many factors to consider when making a decision on where we hold an Annual Meeting. In the past, our meetings have been held in a single facility. We feel this is not only more convenient for attendees, but also more conducive to networking and socializing as well. By holding our meeting in one facility, we are able to negotiate a lower room rate for our attendees. When selecting a meeting site, we consider many factors, including written invitations from Affiliates who are interested in hosting the IAFP Annual Meeting, the desirability of the location in terms of amenities and things to do for families, and whether there is convenient access to the city at reasonable cost. We also try to move the meeting to different parts of the country and to Canada. But much of this is secondary to the meeting facility itself. Once we determine a city (or cities) to consider, IAFP staff members identify potential properties and visit those under consideration to look at all elements that affect our meeting and attendees. Of primary concern are adequate space for the sessions and posters, location of meeting rooms in relation to each other and in relation to the exhibit hall, and adequate exhibit space. The next concern is the availability of guest rooms and meeting space over the preferred meeting dates. We occupied over 800 rooms at the Atlanta Hilton on our peak nights! And room cost is a factor, sometimes forcing us to move the meeting dates to obtain more reasonable room rates (as we have done for the San Diego meeting in 2002). More and more we are finding that few properties can accommodate the meeting as currently structured. So, for better or worse, the character of the meeting as we know it today will be changing. We are beginning to plan for meetings in which we use more than one facility. Hopefully we can transition into such an arrangement, beginning with hotels adjacent to small convention centers (which was essentially the arrangement in Nashville). The next step might be having to walk a block or two to a convention center for the sessions, and possibly using two nearby hotels. We do not anticipate our meeting growing to a size where we have to use multiple hotels and buses to get between them and the meeting site, at least not in the foreseeable future. But that time may come sooner than we think if interest in our meeting grows even faster than anticipated. I for one will miss the "intimate" nature of the IAFP meeting as we currently know it, but I recognize that if we continue to provide meetings of the caliber of the last few years, then inevitably, "they will come." The Board welcomes your thoughts on our Annual Meeting - things you like, things you don't like, suggestions for improvements. We know we can't satisfy everyone, but we want to do our best to continue to provide you with a food safety conference that is second to none. Join us next year in Minneapolis, Minnesota for IAFP 2001, the 88th Annual Meeting of the International Association for Food Protection. You won't be disappointed! |