Food Protection Trends - January/February 2022 - 6

COMMENTARY
FROM YOUR PRESIDENT Ruth L. Petran
Greetings everyone, I sure hope you're
all staying healthy. In these days of rising
and waning COVID-19 cases, I often find
myself stuck between optimism and pessimism
about how to plan future work and
family commitments. But I guess we're
all becoming even more adaptive and
resilient which are always good qualities to
apply in our food protection lives as well.
There's much to be enthusiastic about
as we're in the season of nominating
worthy colleagues and applying for one
of the dozens of awards that IAFP presents. The deadline to apply for all
awards, including the Travel Awards and Student Travel Scholarships, is
Tuesday, February 15, 2022, which will be here before we know it. We
have the opportunity to recognize food protection excellence among
our colleagues' research efforts, corporate achievements, industry focus,
and education. Who can you nominate?
I'm especially pleased to highlight a newer award that's been given
just once so far. This is the James M. Jay Diversity in Food Safety Award
aimed at recognizing an active IAFP Member who has made significant
contributions toward fostering diversity within food safety-related
careers, activities, or research. The award recognizes Dr. Jay's pioneering
efforts toward inclusion in an era when scientific underrepresentation
of many groups was common. The award provides an opportunity to
highlight any IAFP Member who actively continues Dr. Jay's legacy of
inclusion. For those who were not fortunate to meet him, you can find
his story at blackpast.org.
We also need to celebrate the interactions we can all continue to have
with each other in these times when the Annual Meeting and European
conferences are still months away. The international meetings that
IAFP supports in China, Asia Pacific, Africa, and Dubai have recently
been completed and were well attended, presenting a wide variety of
topics. Recaps of these meetings are found elsewhere in this issue of FPT.
In addition, we can continue to be involved through our local affiliates
and PDGs.
Remember that Affiliates offer us all a way to stay engaged locally
with colleagues to learn and share expertise. Affiliate members are
encouraged to be active IAFP Members as well. Recently, I was excited
when Affiliate Chair Wendy White shared the first draft of the Affiliate
Council Strategic Plan to guide us through the next few years and foster
greater collaboration by sharing best practices. Learn more details by
listening to this recording (available through IAFP Connect) of a recent
Affiliate leadership meeting attended by folks from around the world or
read the most recent issue of the Affiliate View. There was great enthusiasm
focused on providing support and continuity as well as improving the
affiliate experience. Cultivating student involvement is another key
tenet of the Plan. I think the Council is well positioned to leverage
momentum to make progress in the near future.
In addition, our 28 Professional Development Groups (PDGs) offer
the opportunity to delve deeper into a particular topic area within
Food Protection and to connect with like-minded colleagues. As PDG
members gather to help plan programming for the Annual Meetings
and webinars, I challenge us all to think outside of our own particular
sectors and remember our three broad categories of members from
academic, industry and regulatory agencies. This will ensure that PDG
focuses are fully inclusive of all our stakeholders and their diverse needs
and points of view.
Remember that IAFP is so much more than just an annual meeting.
Please take advantage of the opportunities outlined here and stay
engaged with us all year long. And as always, please do not hesitate to
reach out if you have thoughts to share. Happy New Year, everyone!
FROM YOUR EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR David W. Tharp
This month begins the new year of
2022. In past years, we have always
begun the year with uncertainty,
but more recently (2020 and 2021),
COVID-19 has changed the way of
the world and in part, created more
uncertainty. For us, it is uncertainty
about planned events in Europe and
North America - plus our other
international events. Will speakers and
attendees be able to travel? Will they be
willing to travel? Will revenues be affected? Will expenses be higher?
More than likely if our events are able to take place, both revenues
and expenses will be adversely affected.
One thing for certain is that after our Fiscal Year Ending August
31, 2021, financial results were completed, we were able to breathe
a sigh of relief. See page 91 for the General Fund Activity report. We
ended the year by adding $513,000 to our net assets. This comes after
the prior year took away $569,000 from the net assets. Overall, our
General Operating Fund is well funded with $3.39 million in reserves.
With this news, we are very happy to have essentially replaced the lost
net revenue from 2020.
You may recall in 2020, the largest issue was that we did not hold
an Annual Meeting within that fiscal year. Last year, I pointed out that
the Annual Meeting normally contributes $500,000 to $900,000 to
help the General Fund support IAFP operations.
During the Fiscal Year Ending August 31, 2021, we held two
Annual Meetings: one in October of 2020 (a virtual Annual Meeting)
and the second, IAFP 2021 was held in-person in Phoenix and
virtually (a hybrid meeting). Between the two meetings, we were left
with $570,000 in net revenues. It is an odd coincidence this amount
6
Food Protection Trends January/February
$742,000
167,200
40,000
26,000
11,000
of net revenue directly offset the loss we incurred in FY 2020. This
allowed us to end the year August 31, 2021 by adding net assets to the
General Fund.
Other factors contributing to our net results for FYE August 31,
2021 included:
General Fund investment increases
Payroll Protection Program loan forgiven
Speaker Travel investment increases
Net revenue from European Symposium-2021
Net revenue from IAFP 2021 workshops
From this, you can see it takes many revenue sources to bring IAFP
to a position where our revenues exceed our expenses. Without all
of them pulling together, we would not have had such a successful,
financial year!
Another bright spot for IAFP financially was the Foundation. For
Fiscal Year End August 31, 2021, the Foundation capital balance
increased by $550,000. This was achieved through receipt of
contributions totaling $112,000 and investment valuation increases
of $490,000. Sustaining Memberships and the Silliker Lecture
sponsorship contributed another $60,000 and our expenses were
kept low for the year. The big news here is that the Foundation capital
balance ended the year at $3 million!
Hopefully, the year of 2022 will bring greater stability to the world
and we can begin inching our way toward resuming normal operations.
We hope conditions will allow us to hold the European Symposium
on Food Safety in Munich, Germany over the dates of May 4-6 and
IAFP 2022 in Pittsburgh from July 31 to August 3. Certainly, we will be
monitoring current health conditions and making any adjustments that
may become necessary.
We look forward to the opportunity to see you in the coming year
and hope that you are keeping well and healthy. Best wishes for a
healthy and Happy New Year in 2022.
http://www.blackpast.org
Food Protection Trends - January/February 2022

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