APLAC MRA Council
A successful MRA Council meeting was held in Auckland, New Zealand on 11 and 12 May. The Board of Management met for two days prior to the Council meeting. We would like to thank our hosts, IANZ, for their hospitality and co-ordination of the arrangements for both meetings.
APLAC Membership
Full details of APLAC’s members (37 Full and 8 Associate members) and its MRA signatories can be found at our website: www.aplac.org
APLAC Training Courses
The first of three workshops “Enhanced Training for PT Experts”, being run in conjunction with PTB was held in Bangkok, Thailand from 1 – 4 August 2011. The workshop was most successful and we thank our joints hosts NSC-ONAC, DMSc and DSS for their organisation and co-ordination of the workshop.
We would also like to thank our principal trainers Mr Dan Tholen, Vice Chair of the APLAC Proficiency Testing Committee and Dr Clemens Sanetra, Consultant for PTB. They were assisted by Dr Raviwan Artsamang, Manager of DSS Center for Laboratory Proficiency Testing (CLPT) and Ms Rachada Hempattawee, Senior Scientist at DSS CLPT.
The workshop was organised and hosted by Ms Suda Nantavithya, Manager of DSS BLA.
APLAC’s second training course for 2011, ”Statistical Methods for Proficiency Testing” is being held 11 to 13 October in New Delhi, India. At the time of writing this article registration for the course had closed. A more detailed report on the training course will appear in the next edition of “ILAC News”.
APLAC web site
Our website has frequent updates so please feel free to visit it at www.aplac.org
APLAC Office Bearers
Two positions on APLAC’s Board of Management were open for nomination and subsequent election at the General Assembly meeting in Manila.
Following the resignation of the previous Chair of the APLAC Public Information Committee, the Vice-Chair, Mr Roger Muse of ACLASS, USA, was appointed as Acting Chair of the Public Information Committee. An election for this position was held at the General Assembly meeting in Manila in September.
Details of APLAC’s new Board of Management members and Public Information Committee Chair will be in the next edition of “ILAC News”.
APLAC at PAC
Ms Chang Kwei Fern and Michael Fraser attended the 18th PAC Plenary meetings in Manila, The Philippines in June.
Chang Kwei Fern was invited to attend the PAC Executive Committee meeting as an observer. This initiative for the Chairs of both APLAC and PAC to attend each others executive meetings is viewed as an important mechanism in improving the working relationship between APLAC and PAC.
The revised Memorandum of Understanding between APLAC and PAC was signed by Mr Shinichi Iguchi and Ms Chang Kwei Fern as part of a special signing ceremony held in conjunction with the Welcome Reception Dinner on the Monday evening.
We were pleased to have the Mr Shinichi Iguchi, Chair of PAC and Ms Belinda Mort, PAC Secretary, attend the Manila meetings.
APLAC at IAAC
APLAC was invited to attend the IAAC General Assembly and associated meetings being held in Quito, Ecuador on 25 and 26 August 2011 by IAAC and the hosts of the meetings Organismo de Acreditación Ecuatoriano, OAE. Ms Chang Kwei Fern gave her apologies for being unable to attend and the APLAC Secretary represented APLAC at the meetings.
The IAAC General Assembly agreed to extend the IAAC MLA scope to include the following:
• Proficiency Testing Providers, according to ISO/IEC 17043;
• Reference Materials Producers, according to ISO/IEC Guide 34, in conjunction with ISO/IEC 17025.
APLAC is very appreciative of the invitation from IAAC and Organismo de Acreditación Ecuatoriano to attend these meetings.
Michael and Janet
