The Oils & Fats Specialist Group
Chairman’s Report May 2015
We currently have 158 members on the mailing list and we are in a reasonable financial state with around $10K in bank deposits. However we have no major fundraiser on the near horizon so it is prudent to call for subscriptions at $25 per head on any new members to cover admin/expenses for the next five years. We have about 80 handbooks in stock. Any existing member who now wants a copy can have one for $15 plus postage. New members pay $25 included in the total membership fee.
David Pooch and Siew-Young Quek organised an excellent and well attended seminar based around palm oil which was held at the University of Auckland last year.
Bernie Radford has agreed again to be our auditor and assist Dr Sally Xiong in formalising the accounts. We are grateful to Bernie for doing this and nominate him for the position of auditor for the forthcoming 12 months. Bernie has also proposed that we add the following to the name of our organisation “Lipids, Nutrition and Health Society”.
Planned activities
We have a joint seminar with the Omega-3 centre at the NZIFST conference starting June 30th in Palmerston North.
We are currently thinking of proposing a joint seminar with AAOCS in Nelson in November 2016. The link with AOCS has proved stronger in recent years and they seem to take a strong interest in activities down under.
Matt Miller continues to do a sterling job as the Chairman of AAOCS and the programme for the upcoming event in September this year in Geelong looks extremely inviting.
Our newsletter is published every 2 months in Food New Zealand thanks to Anne Scott of Peppermint Press. Anyone interested in getting Food New Zealand should contact Anne.
Our website has been updated to make it look and appear more modern and is very consumer friendly thanks to the ongoing stewardship of Chris Newey of Foodworks. If anyone has ideas or useful data to put on the site please let me know, contributions are always welcome as are contributions to the newsletter.
Website address: http://www.oilsfats.org.nz/
Login: member Password: polyphenol
Nominations for the three elected positions are as follows:
Laurence Eyres, Chairman eyresy@gmail.com 021671871
Ruth Eyres, Secretary ruth.eyres@gmail.com 021339302
Sally Xiong, Treasurer sally_312@hotmail.com 02102621189
Nominations have been received for these three positions and if no-one else is proposed, they will be re-appointed.
Current committee members: It is hoped they will continue for the next 12 months. We are always looking for new blood so if anyone is interested please email us.
Allan Woolf Allan.Woolf@plantandfood.co.nz
Anny Dentener anny.dentener@adecron.co.nz
Charmian O’Connor cj.oconnor@auckland.ac.nz
Geoff Webster geoff.webster@paradise.net.nz
Laurence Melton l.melton@auckland.ac.nz
Lynette Ferguson l.ferguson@auckland.ac.nz
Margaret Edwards mvedwards@actrix.gen.nz
Matthew Miller (AAOCS representative) Matt.Miller@cawthron.org.nz
Siew Young Quek sy.quek@auckland.ac.nz