The BBC interview for Farming Today
mentioned in last week’s Blog was broadcast on Friday morning at 0547hrs –
thank goodness for BBC iPlayer! http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b04mhd54
BEVA activity has been fairly hectic this
week. I attended a meeting of the
Stewards of the Joint Measurement Board at Stoneleigh on Monday afternoon. One of the recommendations discussed was to
ask measurers to try and achieve an accurate measurement at a fully relaxed
height and don’t just discontinue the process when the desired height that the
presenter wants has been reached.
On Tuesday I attended back-to-back Board of
Management (BOM) and Policy Committee meetings, which were held at BVA HQ in
London (Mansfield Street). This was another
opportunity for me to utilise a Boris Bike – what a great idea they really are;
£2 / 24 hours if your journeys are < 30 minutes long.
BOM is responsible for the day to day running
of the Association, from HR issues in the BEVA office to budgeting for
Congress. Did you know that the cost on
Congress 2013 was over £500,000? Whereas, Policy Committee looks at and updates
the activities of each of the Committees utilising SMART analysis for each one.
On Tuesday evening I treated Vicki Nicholls and Jon
Pycock to dinner at an Indian Restaurant as recommended by the hotel, named
Gaylord Restaurant….how appropriate for JP!
Then on Wednesday morning we had the
Paraprofessional Committee meeting chaired by Vicki and comprising me,
Renate Weller, Hannah Yates of BCF Technology (a new face), Jonathon Pycock
(another new face for the second time around!), David Mountford and Neil
Townsend who has been co-opted for his expertise in dentistry, flaunting his
new status as one of the first Diplomates of the European College of Veterinary
Dentistry; “Dipl.EVDC(Equine)”. Congratulations Neil. It’s really exciting to
welcome these new members to Council and to breath new life into the
Association.
Paraprof.
Comm covers, amongst other things, EDT’s with whom we all work most days. The recent survey, which we ran about the
Category’s for Dental Procedures, yielded some very surprising results and
indicated a distinct lack of knowledge amongst our members about the different Categories. If you’re unclear, please follow the link
below to ensure that you are not inadvertently complicit with an illegal
procedure: http://www.beva.org.uk/_uploads/documents/current-regulations-on-equine-dental-procedures.pdf
Over the 2 days in London, it came to light
that it had been mentioned by different sources to a member of BEVA Council, that
Council was full of old, male, tweedy farts; male – yes; old – not in my eyes;
tweedy – definitely not; farts – I don’t think so!!.... Or maybe I’m just kidding
myself. The gender demography of Council
probably doesn’t represent that of the profession as a whole and with that in
mind we positively encourage involvement of all members to join and become part of the voice of the profession.
I had to leave Paraprofessional Committee
meeting early to be on duty for the last race meeting of the season at
Worcester. This was followed by a night
on 1st call, which resulted in all night surgical colic until 5.30am
in the lead up to a day’s holiday on Thursday.
Although it did make a refreshing change from the dozen Atypical
Myopathy cases, which were admitted to the hospital over the last week or
so. On Thursday morning, I was greeted
at 8am by Lucy, my daughter, asking if we could go for a hack before her
cross-country schooling session. When I
explained that I’d only been in bed for a couple of hours, she responded with,
“Oh dear…Shall I go and get him tacked up then?”
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