First of all a Happy New year to everyone – as I am writing this on 23rd December and the new year seems a way off yet. However I do hope everyone had a very good seasonal break, wherever you are and whatever denomination. 2010 was a busy year at the WPSJ editorial office, with many new systems coming on line along with their accompanying issues. We have now cleared the backlog of papers that were sent in via the old, direct email system, and many thanks go to Dr Shay Hill in my New Zealand office in this endeavour – and the many hours she spent making sure the old papers were finalised. So we now are completely operational regarding submitting papers online, even though many authors still try to submit the old way and have to be redirected, I’m sure we’ll all get used to it. Happily, submitting to the WPSJ is still a free service – unlike most journals nowadays. At the Editors office, we are very mindful of trying to encourage papers from other, less well represented areas, to keep a broad level of interest for our readers. We have also been discussing how best to incorporate more commercial work, to provide more relevant information for our commercial members, although the best vehicle for this has yet to be determined. I also managed to confuse a great many people by changing my name back to my maiden name – but everyone seems to be getting used to that too!

Many thanks to all who submitted papers in 2010 via the new system. We did have some glitches, as expected whenever one undertakes such a project, but we worked through them and hopefully the submission system works fine now. Our partners in setting this up were Cambridge University Press, and their help has been invaluable in this exercise.

As for 2011, it will be interesting to see how things work out for the poultry industry. Major issues still involve the poor harvests and associated feed costs that go hand in hand with such situations. Increasing media focus on how meat and eggs are produced and the role of supermarkets may also change some of the paradigms regarding production and ethics, However, as the various global economies are still facing problems, it’s hard to see how such considerations can be balanced against the need for a source of safe, cheap food by the general population.

So, it remains for me to say that I am very much looking forward to seeing you all at various meetings this year and receiving your review papers as well.

Dr Lucy Waldron

Editor