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Food Protection Trends A View from Wisconsin I recently came across a quote from an unknown author, Volunteer—not so you can build your resume, but so you can build yourself. This viewpoint represents the philosophy with which my parents raised me and the way of life in which my husband and I strive to raise our own children. Our family tries to do our share in our community, school, church, and other professional activities. Through volunteer activities, we learn teamwork, leadership skills, and enjoy the camaraderie of other volunteers and beneficiaries of our activities. I admit that the activities can be time consuming, but the outcome is worth the efforts. IAFP is proud of its volunteers and we thank you for your willingness to serve. Our Association boasts a membership of just under 3,000 individuals, with an impressive half of our members (and growing) who attend the Annual Meeting. If you have a chance to look through the 2005 Membership Guide that you received in January, you will notice the long lists of members for each of the professional development groups. Some of these individuals may not have an opportunity to attend the PDG meetings that are held in conjunction with our annual conference, but have indicated that they are willing to participate in activities during the rest of the year via email or conference calls. There are certain select committees, such as the Program Committee, the journal management committees, or the various award selection committees, for which we always have a waiting list of eager members who would like to be considered for appointments. In recent years, the response by volunteers to our call for symposia and workshop proposals has been tremendous, but has led to some “growing pains” for the Association. We have roughly twice the number of proposals as we have time slots; this year’s technical program like-wise faced similar restrictions due to a record number of abstract submissions. Space and time limitations forced the Program Committee to cull nearly 20% of the technical abstracts submitted compared with 10% in previous years. While the response allows the Program Committee to be selective, it is an unenviable task to select which symposia and technical presentations will provide the best, well-balanced program. Submissions that may have been accepted two years ago may have unfortunately been cut this year. It is indeed regrettable that we do not have enough openings in our current programming to take advantage of all the volunteers. We don’t want these individuals to be discouraged, nor do we want to turn down your offers to help and be an integral member of our association. We need you and want you! Therefore, I would like to explore creative ways to utilize our members’ expertise. One way in which we could use your help is in sorting the meeting program for specific target groups, such as for the dairy or toxicology-related field. As you may have noticed, the Annual Meeting pro-gram is packed with over 500 technical and symposia presentations. Going through the program can sometimes be overwhelming because of the shear number of speakers and poster presentations. Perhaps you have had the experience of missing a presentation because it seemed lost in the crowd of names in the program. If you have a couple hours to spare, please consider volunteering to work with your PDG chair to sort through the final program when it becomes available in April. Find the symposia and technical presentations which are particularly pertinent to your constituency and prepare an E-mail outlining the relevant presentations to send to your fellow PDG members and to colleagues who may not be currently involved. Your PDG chair can work with the IAFP staff to get the necessary E-mail addresses or set up a listserve. This effort will not only be a great service to your colleagues, but will also benefit the IAFP educational program as a whole. Your volunteer activities will maximize the number of attendees in each session and facilitate helpful discussion. We also ask our PDGs to consider activities other than symposia or workshops, such as developing booklets helpful to your commodity, or by providing ideas for white papers. We received several suggestions for white papers from members during the past couple months and are currently researching which topics have already been completed (or are nearly completed) by other groups so that we can avoid duplication of efforts. Or perhaps members of your group can write a short essay for the Thoughts on Food Safety column or a review for publication in Food Protection Trends. We encourage all PDGs to consider these types of projects; forward your ideas to the Executive Board or your manu-scripts to the journal editors for review and approval. In last month’s column I was pleased to introduce the IAFP Student Travel Scholarship Program sponsored by IAFP and the Foundation Fund. As part of the program, a mentor will be assigned to each of the student scholarship winners. When I attended my first Annual Meeting 15 years ago, I didn’t know the Association or many of the members and was fairly timid. Fortunately, several active IAFP Members, including then-graduate student Anna Lammerding (2002–03 IAFP President), my boss Mike Doyle (1991–92 IAFP President), and industry colleague John Cerveny (winner of the Industry, Citation, and Honorary Lifetime Membership Awards) were willing to take me under their wing, introduce me to key contacts and “show me the ropes.” I thank these people who were key to my progressive involvement and long-term commitment to IAFP. I would like our students to have the same supportive initiation to our Assoc-iation. We will be looking for mentors who have a record of service to IAFP and who are willing to meet with the student scholar-ship winner several times during the meeting, encourage their involvement in PDGs or with student activities, and introduce them to the many distinguished scientists who attend our Annual Meeting. If you know someone who is willing to serve in a nurturing role, or would like to be considered yourself, send me an E-mail so that we can include the names on our list. We hope that as our scholarship program grows over the next few years, so will our mentor program. Regardless of whether you are willing to serve in a leadership position or prefer a behind-the-scenes role, IAFP encourages your volunteer activities in promoting food safety. As always, I welcome your ideas and comments. Please feel free to E-mail me at kglass@wisc.edu and let me know your view. |