Webinar Committee
Mission Statement: To plan, develop and promote webinars on topics of interest to the IAFP Membership and the food safety community
Next Meeting
Virtual: TBD
In Person: IAFP 2025
July 27, 2025, Huntington Convention Center, Cleveland, Ohio
Minutes
Board Responses
- 1. None.
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Mechanism to provide submitters with a way to get assistance with webinar submission. We suggest a webinar on webinars, or direction to other written content to aid with submission and a check box on the submission form to specifically request help in a nearly finished proposal.
Board Response: The Board approves this Response and suggests working with the DEI Council on a “webinar-on-webinars”.
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Consider accessibility for webinars (e.g., closed captioning) and consider changing the platform for webinars to something other than GoToMeeting due to lack of accessibility features.
Board Response: AFP Staff will investigate if closed captioning and translation is available on GoTo Meeting, and examine other platforms for Webinars.
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Receipt of submission of webinar form to inform submitters that their request has been received.
Board Response: The Board approves this recommendation and the IAFP staff will work on the acknowledgement process.
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Providing increased publicity of IAFP and webinar programming on LinkedIn to help reach international audience.
Board Response: IAFP Staff will focus on marketing and promotional efforts for webinars on LinkedIn.
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Consider term limits on Webinar Committee membership.
Board Response: Per the IAFP Bylaws, terms on the Webinar Committee are for 2 years and are renewable. If there are inactive members on the committee, they can be asked to “resign” from the committee by the Chairperson.
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Suggest 3-year terms, with the opportunity for reappointment for an additional term if active and interested.
Board Response: The Board prefers to follow the Bylaws and keep with the prescribed, 2-year renewable terms.
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1. Recommend approval of Kaitlyn Casulli as Vice Chair of the Webinar Committee.
Board Response: Agree.
- None
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Due to Manpreet Singh’s obligations as the Chair of the Program Committee, he has resigned as Chair of the Webinar Committee.
Board Response: Agree.
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The Committee recommends Don Schaffner as the new Chair, effective at the end of IAFP 2019.
Board Response: Agree.
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The Committee recommends that Veronica Bryant be appointed as the Vice Chair of the Webinar Committee effective at the end of IAFP 2019.
Board Response: Agree.
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The Committee recommends that the meeting time be changed to 8:30 a.m. on Sunday to minimize overlap with PDG meetings.
Board Response: Agree.
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The Webinar Committee recommends the Board reconsider
restructuring the webinar fees based on a true cost analysis. Ideally, webinars would be a membership benefit and
charges would only apply to non-members. The Committee
believes this cost structure could also assist in expanding
membership, as the cost to join IAFP would likely not be
substantially more than paying for the webinar. Additionally,
the Webinar Committee recommends that the Board provide more concrete feedback on the fee structure based on
the discussions that took place regarding webinar fees.
Board Response: The Board believes the fee structure is very economical for sponsors or attendees.
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The Webinar Committee recommends that this Special
Committee be transitioned into a Standing Committee.
Board Response: The committee should remain as a Special Committee to provide support services on a continuous basis as specified in the Bylaws.
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The Webinar Committee suggests that the Board strongly consider changing our webinar platform. That consideration should include the “GoToWebinar” platform, and others.
Board Response: Agree, staff will look at associated costs vs. benefits.
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The Webinar Committee suggests that the Board revisit and clarify fee structure for webinars. The Committee is concerned that the incentive to make webinars free, by restricting them to a PDG, actually reduces awareness.
Board Response: The Board will discuss webinar fee structure at a future Board meeting.
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We recommend the Board direct staff to share all PDG minutes with the Webinar Committee, so the Committee can track “in-development” webinars. These in-development webinars can be posted on the Web site as a teaser for webinars to come.
Board Response: Agree, minutes are posted on individual PDG web pages and as a single document containing all minutes. In addition, the all minutes are presented in the November/December issue of Food Protection Trends.
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We recommend the name of this newly approved Committee be changed to the Webinar and Workshop Committee.
Board Response: Agree. This name change will require a change to the IAFP Bylaws to be voted on at the 2017 Business Meeting.
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Convert the Webinar Task Force to Standing Committee of 5-6 members with three-year terms and then conduct a review to determine effectiveness. This should be done as quickly as possible to provide optimal opportunity to make progress before next annual meeting.
Board Response: The Board will consider establishing a Special Committee to allow for flexibility. For the next year, the Board encourages the Webinar Task Force to operate like a Committee. This will allow for a better proposal for the Board to consider.
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Recommend the following to be considered as members: Don Schaffner, Manpreet Singh, P.C. Vasavada, Jim Dickson, Kali Kniel, Gary Acuff, and Bob Gravani.
Board Response: All are excellent choices. The Board encourages government and industry Member involvement in addition to the already mentioned academic members.
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Recommend Manpreet Singh as new committee chair. Gary Acuff can assist as vice-chair if needed.
Board Response: Approve.
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Recommend that the new Committee closely collaborate with Ben Chapman and Brian Sauders on New Media Task Force, and with PDG chairs/vice-chairs.
Board Response: Approve.
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Recommend that symposia not accepted by the Program Committee be sent to the Webinar Committee for possible development into webinars.
Board Response: Approve.
