President’s Note – 17 February 2017

(also available in Spanish and French)

Dear Wapornetters,
WAPOR held its Council meeting on Sunday, February 12, in Montreal, under 23 cm of snow! The Council includes the Executive, i.e., Marita Carballo (Vice-president/president elect), Patricia Moy (Past President), Mark Gill (Secretary-Treasurer) and myself as the President, together with the Chairs: Dan Howell (Liaison), Tim Johnson (Standards), Tamas Bodor (Membership), and Porismita Borah and Jennifer Hunter-Childs (co-chairs for Communication). Sergio Wals is the General Secretary. Here is the news from the Council.

First, I am very glad to announce that the Council decided that the 2018 Conference will be held in Morocco. This will facilitate participation from the Middle East and from Africa while interested people from the other parts of the World will also find it easy to participate also.

Second, the Council gave Dave Howell, our Liaison Chair, the mandate to speak with people in the region as to the next steps that have to be taken in order to set up a WAPOR Chapter in the region, usually referred to as the Middle East and Northern Africa. We also agreed that a new Advisory Council will be proposed, comprising of the Executive, the Liaison Chair and the WAPOR Chapters’ presidents.

Third, Yariv Tsfati could not attend but he had sent us his report about the Lisbon conference that will take place July 15-17, this summer. The conference organizers received 276 proposals and could accept around 200. It will certainly be a very well attended conference. Patricia Moy completed the information provided by Yariv. The Council decided to add a half day of sessions in order to accommodate as many good papers as possible.

Please note that WAPOR Latino America will have its next conference in March 2018 in Colonia, Uruguay. Ignacio Zuasnabar is the organizer.

The Council also gave mandates to Dave Howell to look at the possibilities for a regional conference in Africa and to Marita Carballo, for a regional conference in Eastern Europe.

The Council formally voted on the appointment of Paul Brewer (University of Delaware) and Mike Xenos (University of Wisconsin-Madison) as the new co-editors of IJPOR starting next September. The selection committee was under the responsibility of Porismita Borah.

Jennifer Hunter-Childs informed us that the new website is coming soon.

Tim Johnson is working on an update of the WAPOR/ESOMAR report on the right to conduct opinion polls. If you are a national representative, you will hear from him.

Tamas Bodor, our new Membership Chair, will be working on getting more information about the members, what they are looking for, why they stay, or not, etc. His objective is of course to know our membership better in order meet their expectations and grow our organization.

Please note that, if you have not received it yet, you will receive very soon a request for renewal. Please do so and give attention to the possibility to contribute to our awards funds.

Mark Gill informed us that our finances are in very good shape, which means we can have projects.

Marita Carballo and I will be working on a strategic plan for the next four years. It will be ready for the membership meeting in Lisbon.

AND it is WAPOR’s 70th Anniversary. We are thinking about activities that could highlight this event. Open to ideas!

Historical fact: The first president, in 1947, was Jean Stoetzel, who founded the polling firm IFOP in France, after a meeting with George Gallup in the U.S.

Best,
Claire Durand
President