MINUTES OF AGV COUNCIL MEETING
NOBEL HOUSE LONDON
27 April 2010
Present: Adrienne Conroy (President), Jane Clark (Senior Vice-President) Catherine McVicar ( Junior Vice-President), Stewart Donald (Secretary), Fred Landeg (Treasurer), Rebeca Garcia, Linda Smith, Kate Sharpe, Levon Stephan and Davina Gray
The meeting was chaired by the President who extended a warm welcome to all, and thanked everyone for their attendance and participation.
1.Apologies for Absence.
Received from Alex Tomlinson. No response from Katherine Edgar.
2. Minutes of Council Meetings of 12 January 2010.
These were accepted.
3. Matters arising from Minutes
Item 3.5 Animal Health CPD. Nothing really to add at the moment. CPD certificates quantifying the hours accrued were being issued in Animal Health training
Item3.11 In-View article – carried forward Action Point – AC,SD
Linda stated that a piece about AGV has been submitted to the OV Newsletter (which has yet to be published)
Stewart had sent a further e-mail to Zimbabwe State Vets informing them about our website and conferences – no further reply from them on what they want from us.
Item4. No appointment of the Lowe Report independent group has been made yet.
Item 8. Catherine has yet to write to send a summary of the last assembly to Council, and for inclusion on website. Action Point - CMcV
Item10. Membership leaflet yet to be prepared Action Point - SD
4. Conference 2010
Adrienne updated Council on recent developments and thanked Catherine, Kate and Rebeca for their efforts so far. The conference now involved 4 bodies (AGV,GVS, VLA and VMD). The dinner, which in previous years was an AGV event will now be a Gala Dinner on the Wednesday night (22/9). Catherine circulated the programme of speakers for the AGV day on the Wednesday along the theme `Vets in a Changing World’.
There was some discussion on day rates, student rates and retired rates – possibly also an OV rate. Adrienne and Linda will speak to Nigel Gibbens and Megan Power.
Action Point – AC, LinS
Stewart will update and promote on the website Action Point – SD
Adrienne will write to RCVS inviting the President to the AGM. Given that none of the BVA Officers is available to attend the AGM, Adrienne will write to BVA President to ask for a contribution which can be read out by an AGV Officer at the AGM.
Action Point - AC
5. BVA and AWF matters.
AWF. The Forum is to be held on 17 May 2010 but Rebeca (AWF rep) had no communication to date. She will contact Zoe McCormick at BVA.
Action Point – RG
BVA. Adrienne had nothing to report from the recent BVA Council meeting, minutes of which are on the members’ pages of BVA website. Levon will forward an e-mail received via Western Counties division on the BVA response to the draft Animal Health Bill. (point of later information – the secretary had already circulated this as it was included in the pre-BVA Council papers.) Action Point - LevS
6. Budget and Treasurer’s Items.
Fred had sent out a summary before the meeting which was discussed. Basically we had to wait to see the income from subscriptions in mid May. He thought we should be OK to pay the EASVO sub but we would have to await the income before we decided on whether/what we contribute to the VBF. Fred will send Council members an update at the end of May. Action Point – FL
Fred will also look at the cost and other factors associated with direct debits as opposed to standing orders for members’ subs. (Advantage is that treasurer would have control of changing subs rather than the member who may/may not get round to it). Action Point - FL
7. FVE/EASVO Matters
There was discussion as to whether we should continue to be involved with EASVO/FVE and whether the subscription represented value for money, regardless of whether we can afford it or not. (BVA pays FVE sub while AGV pays EASVO sub which is based on the size of the country as opposed to membership of the domestic state veterinary representative body ie AGV - meaning we pay a lot relative to our membership). The cost of attending meetings is approx £1500-1600 pa. This was government funded in the past as we were briefed by International Trade and subsequently responded to them on meetings, but this arrangement fell by the wayside. We may need to liaise with membership in general, as while not bound by the Constitution, liaison with EASVO/FVE is set out in the Aims and Objectives of AGV – we would have to, at least, communicate with the membership that a decision had been made if we were to cease AGV membership of EASVO.
This issue is to be re-considered following the AGV Treasurer’s Report at the end of May.
8. Consultations.
Levon had provided a list of 5 consultations . We decided :
1. that there was a need to provide a veterinary perspective to the Consultation on the Simplification of Livestock Movement Rules and Holding Identifiers in England. This would be an independent AGV response rather than a joint BVA one though we would copy BVA into the response. Fred will start the ball rolling and invite further contribution from other Council members before Stewart had to send the response by 30 June
Action Point –FL, SD
2. Adrienne will initially look at Food Hygiene (England) (Amendment) (No 2) Regs 2010 before deciding whether to respond Action Point – AC
3. All are to look at the proposal to reduce the frequency of on-farm official inspection in the dairy sector and to feed back to Davina who had some concerns about this. Action Point – all
4. Rebeca will draft and send round a response on Guidance for farmers on record-keeping requirements of Annexe I of the EC Feed Hygiene Regulation (183/2005) before Stewart sends off before deadline of 11 May.
Action Point – RG, SD
5. All are to look at EC consultation on better regulation of veterinary pharmaceuticals which Stewart had previously circulated before sending any comments to Catherine and a decision to respond or not. Action Point - All
9. OV Fee Review.
It was decided that AGV should not get involved on these discussions.
10. Membership
We had a discussion on what AGV could do for potential members and methods of promoting AGV based on a list of headings which Linda had prepared. She and Rebeca will now produce a draft document on membership Action Point– LinS, RG
We have almost outgrown the capabilities of the current website eg it is not possible to put photographs on it. Kate’s son has an interest in this so she will consult him on upgrade possibilities. Action Point - KS
Council discussed potentially suitable candidates for life membership and agreed on an individual for the award in 2010.
11. Competition
Council decided that we would hold a photographic competition which would be exhibited and judged at the Conference. The theme is `The Life of a Government Vet’,
Catherine would look into the cost of obtaining a stand/exhibition space at the Conference. Action Point – CMcV
We will have to set a closing date and Council would then have to draw up a short list which would be voted upon by members at the Conference. Linda will take this forward. Action Point – LinS
Stewart will subsequently publicise the competition by e-mail to members, and on the website. Action Point - SD
12. Newsletter
Good feedback had been received from the membership on the recently published newsletter. The President thanked Alex and Rebeca for their hard work.
The next issue needs to be ready for circulation before the Conference – by 10 September at the latest. Articles and information should be submitted to Alex by 30 July. Action Point - all
Stewart will invite contributions via an e-mail to members and the website.
Action Point – SD
Theresa Phillips would be approached to provide an article for the retired members slot. Action Point – FL
Levon will prepare another competition / quiz. Action Point – LevS
Does Alex need further assistance to replace Les now that he has resigned from Council? Action Point – AT
13. Any Other Business
• Council replacement. We discussed the possibility of co-opting someone from Wales to replace Les on Council but there were no obvious candidates. Trish Logie of VMD was discussed and agreed as a potential replacement. Adrienne to approach.
Action Point – AC
• Sports Day. Rebeca suggested that we enter a team into the Defra Sports Day on 16 July.
14. Date and Time of Next Meeting
Thursday 8 July 2010 at 10am. Teleconference to discuss BVA papers for BVA Council 14 July..
Tuesday 27 July 2010. In London Linda to arrange room and refreshments.
Action Point - LinS
AGV COUCIL MEETING
NOBEL HOUSE LONDON
12 January 2010
Present: Adrienne Conroy (President), Jane Clark (Senior Vice-President) Catherine McVicar ( Junior Vice-President), Stewart Donald (Secretary), Fred Landeg (Treasurer), Rebeca Garcia, Linda Smith - in London
Alex Tomlinson, Kate Sharpe, Levon Stephan, Les Eckford and Davina Gray – by teleconference.
The meeting was chaired by the President who extended a warm welcome to all, and thanked everyone for their attendance and participation.
1.Apologies for Absence.
Received from Katherine Edgar.
2. Minutes of Council Meetings of 13 October 2009 and 1 December 2009.
These were accepted.
3. Matters arising from Minutes
13 October Minutes
Short biography to Secretary by 31 January Action Point – DG
Updated contact list to be sent out Action Point – SD
Item 5. Jane and Kate had not met with Theresa Phillips who has now retired. However they will discuss with her successor, Christine Middlemiss, the possibility of opening up proposed Animal Health training beyond Animal Health. Jane however thought that this may prove difficult as the training being developed by the Veterinary and Technical Services Team was too Animal Health specific
Action Point – JC, KS
At the last meeting it was felt that there was a need for Animal Health to indicate if they had a clear policy on CPD. However since the last Council meeting Animal Health had begun to progress their policy on CPD and therefore it was thought that no further action from AGV was required for the moment.
.
Item 10. Levon stated that he had been finding difficulty in getting AGV on lists of consultees. Jane had found same problem. BVA and now EC (since we registered with them) send consultations to the AGV Secretary. It was agreed that we do our own ad hoc research on sourcing consultations and then circulate the others.
Item 11. Linda said that Landscape had changed its content somewhat but an article in Animal Health’s In-View promoting AGV membership would be useful.
Action Point – SD, AC
The constitution doesn’t presently allow OVs and OVSs to be members as they are not government employees. However we could amend the constitution if it was worthwhile to do so. We should gauge interest from OVs and OVSs at CPD events. We could also publicise in the GVJ as this is circulated to OVs. Advantages in having OVs on board would be that it would increase networking and promote the ethos of `working in partnership’. Action Point LinS re GVJ
1 December Minutes
Item 5. Alan MacPhee is writing a newsletter article and Fred will chase him up
Action Point – FL
Linda has contacted Nick Coulson for an article on interchange with a new department and has an alternative to Roger Hancock lined up for the next edition of the newsletter
Stewart stated that there the Xmas card designed by Rebeca was well-received and the donation to VBF much appreciated. He will collate the responses for the newsletter.
Action Point – SD
Item 6. Stewart had replied to the request from Zimbabwe Government Veterinarians Association but had not heard any more from them.
4. Conference 2010
Adrienne updated Council on recent developments. She had discussed with Nigel Gibbens, CVO the broad theme of `Vets in a Changing World’ and he was supportive of the same. Regarding Conference arrangements, last week there had been a change in plan. It was now intended that – GVS would team up with VLA for a joint conference at the end of September. VLA had already committed to a booking at Warwick University. GVS had seen real benefit in this. Adrienne had managed to retain AGV influence in this. Council felt that the best option but to go with this tripartite conference as it was now too late for AGV to make alternative plans within potentially short timescales. Dates were 21/09 gather for dinner, 22/09 full day CPD and 23/09 full day CPD with some sessions likely running in parallel with VLA. We would aim to have the AGM at lunchtime on 22/09. BVA Congress at Glasgow will immediately follow that weekend(23-25/09).
VLA wanted to do `Antimicrobial Resistance’ on the Thursday but we wouldn’t want to do that as was the main theme of the 2009 joint conference. Adrienne had liaised on some themes with Nick Coulson and had mentioned to Nigel Gibbens that we wanted to explore inclusion of private vets who provide a service to Government.
There would be a 3-way invitation to the BVA and RCVS Presidents.
Estimate for attendance is 200-300 delegates. VMD and Wellcome Trust would also be involved on the Thursday.
Discussion then ensued amongst Council. Some were positive about VLA’s organising skills and in addition felt that the wider exposure would be good for us as there would be `3 way badging’ at the event. Some were concerned about losing our stand-alone identity and felt that although this large conference was good this year, we may have to have a dedicated AGV conference or at least CPD event the following year- joint meetings at a more operational/pragmatic level might be a good follow-up to the broader themes discussed at this joint conference.
As a result of positive discussions, Adrienne will respond to Nigel Gibbens confirming AGV Council agreement Action Point – AC
We then discussed the theme for the AGV component. Kate developed the theme of `Increased Productivity’ which she had already circulated and stated that this is work that is already happening. She cited the development of a Sheep Flock Planning initiative in Yorkshire and BPEx pig industry initiative. Sheep Vet Soc along with Moredun with European funding together with specialist training from ADAS advisers etc will train vets to deliver better. This could link with welfare from better management practices, and could also sit with the responsibility and cost sharing agenda.
It was thought that we needed to link up with the independent chairman of the group being formed as a result of the Lowe Report. Linda or Adrienne to find out from BVA who that is to be. Action Point – LinS, AC
Catherine suggested the BVD eradication programme which is to be pursued in Scotland and would find out more. Action Point – CMcV
Fred brought up the importance of re-emerging disease – bacteria fighting back – and cited Q-fever in the Netherlands and multi-resistant TB including the rise in TB as examples. Alex talked about anthelmintic resistance. Levon suggested RCVS inspections for the Practice Standards Scheme and VMD inspections,. Rebeca suggested an animal welfare topics session as there is a lot going on at the moment – this could tie in very well with the private vet role. She will produce a summary of hot topics. Action Point – RG
Adrienne will get back to Council on the outputs from further discussion. All Council members were asked to think about speakers over the next 6 weeks. Action Point – All & AC
Traditionally, it is the Junior Vice-President ( Cath) who leads on conference organisation but given Cath’s other commitments such as FVE/EASVO, a degree of back-up would be needed. Kate was considered a suitable candidate given some of her input regarding potential Conference participants to date and kindly volunteered to help.
Adrienne will hand over to Cath once she has obtained all the basic information.
5. Joint Meetings with other organisations.
Discussed under other agenda items.
6. BVA and AWF matters.
The President updated Council on her recent attendance at BVA Council meeting in December. Minutes can be viewed via link on website to members’ pages on BVA website.
AGV’s BVA AWF rep had received no communication from AWF yet.
7. Budget and Treasurer’s Items.
We discussed papers which Fred as AGV Treasurer had prepared on income and expenditure for 2009, budget for 2010, and anticipated 2010 subscription income, together with a summary Treasurer’s Report. The current account had been eroded due to lack of income from conference surplus and being hit with the poor rate of the pound against the Euro in which the EASVO sub is paid.
Fred will add a reminder to change standing orders to the new subscription rate in the Newsletter. AGV Secretary will also e-mail a reminder in mid-March.
Action Point – FL,SD
Council formally agreed the donation of £60 to VBF in lieu of Xmas cards.
It was suggested that AGV have a competition for an essay, photo etc and wondered about funds for a prize. We decided to carry this forward to the next meeting.
We will also discuss the VBF subscription at the next meeting.
8. FVE/EASVO Matters
The AGV FVE/EASVO rep, Cath gave a verbal summary of her attendance at the last assembly and will send a written summary to Council perhaps for inclusion on the website. She will also provide an item for the Newsletter. Action Point – CMcV
Although Cath had already liaised with Sarah Gordon on inheriting her role, she will contact her again to draft a letter as it was felt that Council should acknowledge Andrew Chirkowski’s huge contribution to FVE/EASVO Action Point – CMcV
9. Consultations.
Levon had provided a list of 4 consultations, 2 of which we thought were worthy of comment. Stewart would place immediately on the website but noted that the one on welfare codes for gamebirds needed a response by 18 January 2010.
Action Point - SD
10. Membership
Linda had spoken to Worcester HR people who agreed to promote AGV by enclosing our leaflet in packs for new veterinary employees both in A/H and Defra. Stewart has to finalise draft of this leaflet before circulating to others for comment and Rebeca for creative art-work. Cath mentioned that she would explore increasing VLA membership.
Action Point – SD
11. Newsletter
Alex introduced this item and reminded Council of the deadline for submission of articles of 31 January. The following are in progress:
President’s piece, Conference Piece (although at this stage this has to be restricted to dates and venue only, content to follow later and via website), FVE/EASVO piece, Carl Padgett piece, Alan MacPhee piece, Treasurer’s reminder on subs, Xmas card feedback, and quiz (one of those submitted by Levon).
Levon and Stewart to liaise on piece on consultations submitted
Action Point – SD, LevS
All to submit to Stewart any relevant items for `hatches, matches and dispatches’.
The editor should also invite contributions from any other members for the next Newsletter.
Articles should also be sent to Rebeca for art-work.
Rebeca suggested having an `Interesting Facts’ item in the next Newsletter.
Council discussed and agreed that the subsequent Newsletter should be ready for the Conference and handed out then (as in 2009 event). This could be updated shortly afterwards with a Conference report and e-mailed to membership.
Formal thanks were expressed to Rebeca for designing the AGV Xmas card.
12. Any Other Business
No other business but the following items to be carried forward to agenda for next meeting.
• Competition (as per para. 7 above.)
• Review of VBF subscription;
• `What can AGV do for you?’All Council members to consider in preparation for the next meeting.
• Consideration of Potential Life Members.
• Methods of promoting AGV. All Council members to consider in advance of the next meeting. Action Point – SD and All
14. Date and Time of Next Meeting
Monday 22 February 2010 at 11am. Teleconference to discuss Conference speakers.
Tuesday 27 April 2010. In London Linda to arrange room and refreshments.
Action Point - LinS