NCIFT MEETING MINUTES

Meeting Minutes May 25, 2022

Date: May 25 2022
Time: 5-6 pm
Location: Zoom

Attendees:
Parastoo Yaghmaee – President
Gabriela Swamy – Secretary
Xi Feng-Dir. At Large
John Frelka- Dir. At Large
Jeff Sheasley- Dir. At Large
Mathew Poon- Dir. At Large
Bruce Ferree-Symposium Chair
Ashwini Wagh – Education Chair
Imelda Vasquez – NCIFT Office Contact
Charlwit Kulchaiyawat- Scholarship Committee
Jamie Lawrence- HornBlower Editor
Apurva Bhave – Social Media Chair
Vivian Wu – University Liaison and USDA representative
Carol Jian – UC Davis Food Tech Club
Katie Routt – UC Davis Food Tech Club
Katie Uhl – UC Davis Graduate students represesntative

5:04 PM Called to Order, Meeting called to end 5:52 PM (PST)

1. NCIFT Ballot and results
   Candidate elections was held in April 2022. The new board has been formed and Dr. Zhongli Pan will be the incoming President Elect. Nishtha Lukhmana will be the Treasurer. Parastoo introduced the other new volunteer members and shared the Leaders Roster.
   John suggested to reframe the by-laws to include balloting protocol. Bruce suggested to create an adhoc committee and reframe the by-laws. He also indicated that change in bylaw might need member approval. John will review the bylaw and provide feedback to the board if a change in bylaw is needed or writing an a protocol for balloting is sufficient to capture best practices.
2. Section Service Award and Section Outstanding Volunteer
   The Section Service Award recipient is Erin Evers. Parastoo thanked her for her decade long service to NCIFT and in chanelling the New Professionals Networking.
   The Outstanding Volunteer is Charlwit Kulchaiyawat. Parastoo thanked him for his seamless efforts with the scholarship activities.

3. Events recap

• Supplier’s Night and Golf outing recap
  Bruce provided an updated on the event. May 9 and 10 were the dates for the NCIFT supplier’s Night events. Five events over the course of these 2 days. The Golf Outing and a dinner on May 9. On May 10, the educational symposium followed by a student Poster competition and suppliers’ Expo was held.
  The golf outing was a celebration of the 30th golf outing and Marty Potnick and Dave Sholty were recognized for their 30 years of coordinating it. Golf was at the exclusive Ruby Hills Golf Club with dinner following in their large facility.
  Many sponsoring and attending companies provided raffle prizes for the raffle.
  Here are some statistics on the events.
  Golfers: 104
  Dinners: 32
  Volunteers: 7
  Sponsors: 21

On May 10th, our Symposium covered the topic of ‘The Future of Food’ and we had 4 wonderful speakers. This event was presented with both in person and virtual speakers and was moderated by NCIFT member Dr. Lauren Shimek. The event was attended both in-person and virtually via Zoom. Here are some statistics on the event.
Attendees: 108 in person, 32 Zoom

• Poster Presentation/Competition
  Paratoo provided an update on the poster session. Nine abstracts from SJSU, UC Davis, Chico State were accepted for the competition.
  Undergrad winner: Jovita Avila, Chico State
  Graduate winner: Hannah Louvau, UC Davis
• Expo
  Bruce provided an update on the expo. Here are some statistics on the event.
  Exhibitors: 191
  Attendees preregistered: 210
  Attendees registering on day of: 50
  Sponsors: 37
  Platinum: 6
  Gold: 11
  Silver: 20

  Bruce pointed out the learnings from the event and assured that the final financials will be submitted to the NCIFT board by IFT 22.

• Science Fair
  Parastoo provided an update on behalf of Rachael Hung. The section sponsored three events in the three counties (San Francisco, Monterey, San Jose- Santa Clara) which were well received by the audience.
• San Jose State University
  Alex provided an update on the event. Around 20 attendees were present for the webinar.
• Chico State University
  Parastoo provided an update from Maria. The event was successfully completed.
  The session had 3 panel speakers highlighting on Sustainability, with about 25 attendees. Maria has received good feedbacks on the event with requests for more events.
• UC Davis Food Science Showcase
  Parastoo updated that it was a virtual event and about 50-60 participants attended the event. David Kaplan from Tufts Univ was the keynote speaker.
  Awards and scholarships were announced.
• Educational event
  Ashwini updated that 3 events were conducted by the section this year. She raised her concern to increase attendance in these events and asked for suggestions from the members.
• New professional events
  Parastoo updated the latest new professional event which was conducted successfully the night before.

4. Scholarship Committee update
Charlwit updated that the travel grant announcement will be sent by the end of this week

5. Hornblower
Jaime sent an email earlier in the week to submit articles. The following points were highlighted

• Committee chairs – please provide an article about committee (e.g. Nomination committee, Scholarship committee, Science Fair committee etc.)
• Students and student groups- submit research summaries, activities summaries and information about scholarship acceptances
• Any past memories are welcome

  Bruce promised to send an article on the Supplier’s Expo. Carol also indicated that she will be sending an email about articles that could be sent from UC Davis

6. Upcoming confirmed events

• NCIFT at AgStart with the city of Woodland (June 1, 2022)
  Matthew Poon updated that the event is 20 mins away from Sacramento on June 1, 5:30 – 7:30 pm. He is looking for 2-3 volunteers to help out in the event
• Volunteer appreciation Happy Hour (June 2022)
  Tentative date– June 14. Committee chairs were requested to prepare the list of volunteers in their events
• IFT National (July 10-13, 2022)
  Deadline to commit to becoming an IFT FIRST Ambassador is Friday, May 27 @ 11:59 pm CT

7. Upcoming in progress events

• Orora Packaging Solutions talk and tour (Newark) – July 2022 Looking for volunteer to help with organizing the event.
• OLIPOP Talk and tasting – September 2022
• Central Valley at AEMTEK tour (Modesto) – September 2022