If you ask PAPTAC executive director Rob Wood what’s new, be prepared to stick around and listen for a while. As the world prepares to greet the new millennium, PAPTAC (Pulp and Paper Technical Associ…
If you ask PAPTAC executive director Rob Wood what’s new, be prepared to stick around and listen for a while. As the world prepares to greet the new millennium, PAPTAC (Pulp and Paper Technical Association of Canada) has plenty new to show delegates attending PaperWeek International 2000 (January 31 to February 4, Palais des Congres, Montreal, QC). Under the theme Expanding your horizons, PaperWeek includes the 86th Annual Meeting of PAPTAC, the EXFOR equipment exhibit as well as various CPPA Open Forums.
Foremost, after much debate and discussion, there will be no more technical sessions on Friday. The technical sessions will now match the EXFOR exhibit, beginning Tuesday morning (instead of Tuesday afternoon) and running through Thursday afternoon. This necessitated moving the Gala from Thursday evening to Wednesday evening. The Business Luncheon and presentation of the awards will continue to be held on Thursday. The Chairman’s Welcoming Reception will occupy its usual Tuesday evening slot at the Queen Elizabeth Hotel. The change in schedule means that out-of-town delegates could still be in their offices on Monday before leaving for Montreal and on Friday following the meeting. The new schedule was adopted with the aim of attracting more mill delegates to Montreal. There will be three preprinted books, one for each day.
Wood expects a full slate of close to 40 half-day technical sessions. The Paper Machine Technology Committee has prepared an interesting concept. It has divided the paper machine into six components and has scheduled six consecutive half-day sessions covering the paper machine from “one end t’other”. The Standards Committee, which rarely schedules sessions, will sponsor a special panel discussion with a number of US publishers discussing the important properties needed for newsprint from a customer’s perspective.
The invitation-only Mill Managers’ Forum will again be held on the Wednesday. In 2000, the managers will look at health and safety issues. It will include presentations from three mills with exemplary safety records, two Canadian and one American.
EXFOR will also have a new look this year. Management of the show has been taken over by ActivExpo, headed by Wayne Novak, former director of events for the CPPA. ActivExpo is also responsible for managing the Demo exhibit, organized by the Canadian Woodlands Forum. ActivExpo has three full-time employees with more then 60 years combined experience working in the forest products industry. The company itself is dedicated to show management within the industry. For 2000, Novak said he hopes to give the exhibit a fresh, new look, realizing the basic lay-out – aisles, booth size – cannot be changed. “We’re planning to work closely with PAPTAC and CPPA and make people feel that they’re really walking into a new show.”
With the usual sell-out expected, there should be about 100 new exhibitors among the 450 companies at EXFOR. A long-awaited approval for the expansion of the Palais has been given and the new look Palais will be ready in time for PaperWeek 2002. Neither Novak nor Wood foresees much difficulty in filling the extra space. Novak added that the expansion will allow PaperWeek organizers to respond to demands that could not be satisfied over the last 10 years due to space restraints. With the main floor exhibit area expected to be 200 000 ft2 (total exhibit area is now 160 000 ft2), all exhibitors from the second floor will be able to move downstairs and the potential exists to “change the whole look of the show, including booth dimensions”, according to Novak. But that’s in the future; the task at hand is to move into the new millennium as successfully as possible with PaperWeek 2000, a significant event, not only for the date but also for all the changes that PAPTAC has instituted. These changes were made in response to concerns raised and to serve delegates’ interests.
As PAPTAC (formerly the Technical Section) closes out its first year of independent operation following its split from the CPPA, Wood said the association is a lot more “comfortable” going into PaperWeek. The split from CPPA in November 1998 came in the hectic preparation time before PaperWeek and coupled with a move to new offices, meant some very harried times for PAPTAC’s staff. For 2000, however, PAPTAC is expecting a smoother ride and is approaching the new millennium with confidence.
Print this page
