Perspectives from North of the 49th
October 2005

“I know this is going to be a great year for IAFP and its Members”
By Jeffrey Farber, IAFP President        

Wow, what an Annual Meeting! We broke another record and topped the 1,700 mark for attendance. I think this is a great testament to the strength of our organization and the great reputation which we have been able to build up over the years. There are so many positive and exciting things happening in the Association right now – our future looks very bright. The Sunday night opening session started off with a bang when Gale Prince made an impassionate appeal for donations to the Foundation Fund and generously pledged to give up to $1,000 in matching funds. Well, our members came through again, with the totals for fundraising nearing $6,000 and those for the Silent Auction being around $5,000. Gale wants to have a dunk tank up on stage next year for the Executive Board! Should be quite a sight if this ever happens! I think that Gale will have to go first! We also unveiled our excellent looking brochure on the Foundation Fund, which is such an important part of what we are trying to build as an Association. It gives us the flexibility to be innovative and to bring an improved program and new services for our membership. The scientific program itself was outstanding, with our usual great ILSI-sponsored symposia drawing overflow crowds. The symposium on yeasts and molds was especially well attended; could it be that we need to think about the possibility of starting a yeast and mold PDG? I cannot thank the Program Committee enough for their excellent contributions. Led very ably by Dr. Catherine Donnelly as Chair and Vickie Lewandowski as Vice Chairperson, the team did an outstanding job not only in setting up the program, but also making sure that scheduling conflicts were kept to a minimum. A big thank you to the whole team for all their hard work and dedication to this committee. The late-breaking symposium on avian influenza pro-vided our food safety professionals with an overview of avian influenza and its potential effect on public health worldwide. This hot topic was very well received by members. Presentations included a history of avian influenza, including the recent H5N1 epizootic, natural reservoirs of the virus, surveillance and monitoring efforts (including diagnostics), and approaches to understanding and controlling the spread of the virus. I had discussions with many attendees during the meeting about the program and what you thought of it. A number of people wanted to have more time to visit the exhibits and posters. Should we have less symposia, the same number of symposia but with less talks per symposium, longer exhibitor hours, etc.? I would love to get your thoughts on this! As another year passes, we have to sadly say goodbye to one of our Executive Board members, Paul Hall, who did an outstanding job on the Board. Paul is going to be sorely missed. We also welcome Stan Bailey to the Board, who I know will be a tremendous asset to our organization. A huge thank you to Stephanie Olmsted who did a great job this year as Affiliate Council Chair-person. We welcome our new Affiliate Chair, Terry Peters, who works for the Canadian Food Inspection Agency in British Columbia (a fellow Canadian!), and a big hearty congratulations and welcome to Maria Teresa Destro from Brazil, who is now our Affiliate Council Secretary. We are so glad that Maria Teresa accepted this position as it really enhances our international stature. We are also elated about our newest International Affiliate, New Zealand. This is really fantastic for our organization. Thanks to Roger Cook and his team for getting this Affiliate off the ground! I am hoping that many of you had a chance to meet our new Affiliate Staff Liaison, Nancy Herselius. Nancy really seemed to be enjoying herself at the Annual Meeting and it looks like she has hit the road running and will be a tremendous asset to IAFP now and into the future. I am sure that she would love to hear from you if you have any ideas, no matter how small, about improving our Affiliate structure. There is so much that needs to be done behind the scenes to make an Annual Meeting such as ours run smoothly. Our IAFP office staff, Donna Bahun, Farrah Benge, Bev Brannen, Julie Cattanach, Donna Gronstal, Nancy Herselius, Karla Jordan, Didi Loynachan and Dave Larsen, ably led by Lisa Hovey and David Tharp, do not in my mind get enough recognition for the out-standing work that they do. In addition, Jill Snowdon and her team from the Capital Area Food Protection Association did an unbelievable job in helping set up for this year’s meeting. One can only imagine what it is like getting 1,700 goodie bags ready for participants! For me, one of the highlights of this year’s opening session was the IAFP Student Travel Scholarship Awards. Stephen Grove from the University of Tasmania in Victoria, Australia and Brooke Whitney of Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, Virginia, were the winners. We are going to be expanding the number of Awards next year to four, including one student from a developing country. I am very passionate about these student awards. Students are truly the future of the Association, and if we can help get students to our Annual Meeting, they will be able to see first-hand, how great an organization we truly are, and they will be hooked for life! Please remember as well that these student scholarships are fully supported by the IAFP Foundation Fund. This year we awarded Fellow Awards to six truly outstanding individuals, Stan Bailey, Bob Brackett, Joe Frank, Gale Prince, Jenny Scott, and Susan Sumner. These individuals have truly made a difference and have helped IAFP grow as an organization. So another great Annual Meeting has passed and we hope that next year’s meeting in Calgary, Canada will be even better. As an aside, the weather should be cooler and there are numerous attractions all around so please try to bring your family! As always, I would love to hear from you and am only an E-mail away jeff_farber@hc-sc.gc.ca . Until next time…

Quote of the month : He who knows others is clever; he who knows himself is enlightened . Lao-Tzu

Have a great month!