The 55th meeting of the AG JLC in Dresden

The 55th meeting of the Working Group Young Food Chemistry (AG JLC) was hold from
17th to 19th of March 2023 in Dresden. It was just the second meeting that could happen in presence of the members, not online. The meeting started on Friday afternoon at the university with a presentation of the food chemistry work groups and a tour through the department rooms and the laboratories. Afterwards, there was nice barbecue and self-brewed beer to taste. To get to know each other better, it was organised a quiz with different topics where everyone still learnt something interesting, for example, that there was a skiing world cup hold in Dresden, although it is a rather flat landscape there. The official part of the meeting started on Saturday morning with a short introduction of the AG JLC itself and a presentation from the “Bundessprechenden” (the leading persons in AG JLC). An important point of the agenda was the update of the AG JLC guidelines and the financial situation. Reports of different university locations were presented and it was talked about the wish to organise more meetings of a few or all university groups in between the official meetings to stay in contact. For lunch there was a delicious chili sin carne. After that, small groups talked about their former work, for example the new “PJ-Leitfaden” (guidebook about the practical year for food chemists) and the plans for the AG JLC merchandise. After some free time in the afternoon where many explored the city, everyone met once again at a nice restaurant called “Feldschlößchen-Stammhaus” to have mostly typical German food and beer. Later, many participants went to other locations to further celebrate this weekend. Nevertheless, the next morning almost everyone was punctual for the second part of the official meeting at the university. At this day it was finally voted for the new guidelines and it was discussed how to better promote the study topic to pupils. The main reason for this topic was that the number of people starting our course of study has been going down for quite some time at most of the universities now. Afterwards, small work groups were formed that started talking about upcoming work and what to do until the next meeting in August. At the end, as it is tradition at AG JLC, all participants ate pizza together before everyone had to say good-bye.
A great thank you to the AG Dresden for the organisation of the meeting and the supporting programme. At the end of this weekend, the anticipation for the next meeting of the AG JLC in Bonn this summer was already noticeable.