WACS CONGRESS CHILE 2010 - UPDATE

The first full day of the 34^th WACS Congress started early for some of us with Continental meetings taking place so that member associations of each continent could put forth in open discussion any concerns, issues or ideas that they may have and allow these to be discussed by the member associations present and to then given direction to the respective Continental directors to take back to the board.

 

We, the NZCA met with our counter parts from Asia and The Africa’s and Middle East. Topics were discussed that I will go into in further detail at a later date. From here we moved into the Congress Hall for the official start of the 34^th WACs Congress.

 

Our Sargent at Arms Mr Enrique Evans brought us to order and introduced Mrs Jaqueline Rodriquez, the Congress Director, who just like President Fuente last evening showed much pride and emotion in the fact that Chile is the first Latin American country to host a WACS Congress. She spoke with passion for Chile and the honour that it is for the Chilean Chefs Association to host the visiting delegates from around the world. We were then addressed by Mr Jaime Abellano, The General Counsel for CORFO – The Chilean Economic Development Ministry and he spoke of the importance of Congresses such as this in being able to show case the wonders of Chile. Our final guest speaker at this time was Mrs Marigen Hornkohl, the Agriculture Misnister for the Chilean government, she spoke with much pride of the achievement of the Chilean Food & Beverage sector and the recognition that Chilean products have in the world market place.

 

Now it was time to get down to the serious business of WACS. It was determined that 53 members countries were present and 7 proxy votes were registered, thus giving the congress a quorum.

 

The first order of business was to appoint internal auditors and Axel Rhummel of Germany and Albert Steinmetz of Austria were duly appointed. Paul Moore from Australia and Yiannis from Greece were appointed as official vote counters for the business of voting collation.

 

Were were then presented with 9 new member countries to be admitted as full WACs members, these being: Bosnia and Herzagovenia, Macedonia, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Peru, Namibia, Guam, Uzbekistan and Ghana. And Honduros to be admitted as affiliate members, these were all duly carried.

 

So now WACS is proud to announce that it has 92 member associations, when to think that just 20 short years ago in Singapore there were 39.

 

Just prior to lunch it was time for the Parade of Nations which was lead by the Band of the National Uniformed Police, a great moment as the band played and the 50 junior chef delegates brought in the flags of the WACS member countries.

 

Lunch was a buffet affair with offerings of seafoods, salmon, pork and beef along with a rather tasty, if somewhat sweet dessert tasting plate.

 

After lunch is was back to the serious business of WACS where we firstly voted upon the By-Laws amendments, there were 13 in total and suffice to say these were all carried and passed. Once the new statutes are available I will arrange for them to be viewable on the NZCA website and will give a more detailed report on these to the executive upon my return home.

 

We then had the reports from the WACs President, Honorary President, Past President, Vice-President, Secretary General and Treasurer. Again I will make these available on the NZCA website in the near future.

 

Then it was time for the dreaded WACS Group Photo, this was taken in the Gardens of the Casa Piedra and surprisingly it went very smoothly indeed.

 

So that’s the business end of day one, this evening we are guests of the Chilean President at the Palace Castillo Hidlago. More on that later.