Food Protection Trends - November 2010 - 752

The PDG discussed IAFP’s idea for charging a fee of $25 for webinars. There were differing opinions on the cost and a suggestion that instead of holding a webinar with a fee, use a conference call and email out the PowerPoint presentation in advance. The majority support the idea of a webinar and $25 fee. Many thought it was a means of IAFP membership building and the webinar should reach out to industry. board response: Webinars offered to PDG Members only will continue to be supported by IAFP (corporate hosting is welcomed). For Webinars open to a wider public (beyond PDG Members), a minimal charge will apply. The PDG recommends to the Board that presentations from the Annual Meeting be posted on the IAFP web page, or sent after the meeting on a thumb drive, to persons who paid registration for the meeting. IAFP would have to consider having authors sign a release form to share their presentations. board response: Because of the wide variety of speaker backgrounds and employer stipulations, not to mention the volume of material presented at our Annual Meeting, it is difficult to achieve this goal. Therefore, the current method employed is that attendees may request presentations directly from the speaker and the speaker may choose whether to provide the information or not.

IAFP should provide a list of historical topics and date of symposia with abstract before the end of August and send to the PDG members to improve recommendations for 2011. board response: There are a number of issues in this suggestion. First, the Board does encourage each PDG to scrutinize its suggested symposium ideas and only develop those that carry the necessary elements to be submitted for consideration by the Program Committee. The Program Committee has avoided a specific allocation of program slots to each PDG, opting to select from those symposia submitted to make the program most complete and balanced. A list of topics presented over the past 5 years will be developed and distributed to each Committee and PDG Chair and Vice Chair. 3. Approve Patricia Wester as Vice Chair beginning at IAFP 2011. board response: Approved.

Microbial Modelling and risk analysis PDG
recommendations to Executive board: 1. Recommendation regarding the process of annual meeting proposals submission and selection: The PDG would ask the Executive Board to encourage the Program Committee to (1) provide proposers with more specific feedback when proposals are rejected such that learnings can be taken into account by proposers and PDG, (2) to arrange for a mechanism through which the Chair and Vice Chair of a PDG are kept informed by the Program Committee about proposals from the PDG being submitted and rejected or accepted. board response: The Program Committee with staff support will provide more specific feedback on symposium submissions. As for communicating these results to the PDG chair and vice chair, this is the responsibility of the person(s) organizing the symposium. Recommendation regarding PDG interaction in between Annual Meetings: The PDG asks the Executive Board to set-up a mechanism for PDGs to interact and communicate in between Annual Meetings; this could be through one of the new social media or a dedicated content management system, but would preferably be one system for all PDGs. board response: IAFP staff will investigate systems available and cost involved; then report to the Board. Approve Alejandro Amezquita as Vice Chair. board response: Approved.

International food Protection Issues PDG
recommendations to Executive board: 1. Approve Deon Mahoney as Vice Chair. board response: Approved

Meat and Poultry safety and Quality PDG
recommendations to Executive board: 1. PDG chairs and vice chairs should meet to share recommendations and possibly rank suggested symposia to facilitate selection by the Program Committee. a. We agreed a virtual meeting should occur of the chairs and vice chairs. b. Ask the Program Committee to accumulate all of the proposed symposia and host a webinar type meeting in October 2010 to update all PDG chairs and vice chairs. c. This will allow for the PDG chairs to also possibly adjust their recommendations to the Program Committee and potentially combine topics with other PDGs. board response: The Board suggests PDG chairs and vice chairs (or persons organizing symposia) should contact other PDG chairs where the topic interest may cross-over. Organizing a teleconference or Webinar prior to the submission deadline is not feasible since only 10 to 20 percent of submissions are received in advance of the deadline date. The IAFP Board should consider allocating a set amount of session time for PDGs to develop appropriate symposia recommendations. a. b. c. d. e. The PDG also will consider just limiting the number of symposia at the start. Maybe just allocate 10% over what has been accepted historically. We should rank and then recommend to the Program Committee. There is the issue of independent symposium recommendations outside of a PDG. Therefore this provides for potentially more overlap. The Board should provide a complete list to the PDG chairs and vice chairs prior to the webinar to facilitate the meeting discussion.

Pre Harvest food safety PDG
recommendations to Executive board: 1. This committee respectfully requests that this PDG be accepted as a PDG within the organization. board response: Approved. A recommendation is given to consider a free membership for ‘new’ speakers with a 50% discount the following year. board response: Additional details would be necessary to implement a program along these lines. Nonmember speakers are already provided with gratis registration for Annual Meeting. Approve Paula Fedorka-Cray as Chair and Sid Thakur as Vice Chair. board response: Approved.

752 FOOD PROTECTION TRENDS | NOVEMBER 2010

Food Protection Trends - November 2010

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Food Protection Trends - November 2010