Presidents report for 28th January Meeting of the WEVA Board at the 10th WEVA conference, Moscow - RUSSIA

Dear Friends and Colleagues,

Introduction

My sincere thanks to you all for the pleasure and privilege of your invitation to serve this Association as your President. Your invitation was relayed to me through the then President and now our Senior Vice-President, Des Leadon, following the 9th WEVA Congress in Marrakech, in january 2006. I accepted on the condition that WEVA continues to reach his aim as a continuing education provider, with a special emphasis on providing teaching in countries in which equine CE was not as evolved as it is in some of the world's more fortunate countries.

AAEP with Wayne Mc Il Wraith, Scott palmer and David Folley, BEVA with Josh Slater, David Dugdale and Arabella Michell were very supportive of this concept. They help us in different intermediate meetings. I want to thank every Weva member and associate speakers who spent time to participate and gave lectures at intermediate meeting in Colombia, India and Chile.

9th WEVA Congress, Marrakech

Our friends in Morroco were wonderful hosts for the 9th WEVA Congress in Marrakech in January 2006. Mohammed Bakkoury and his colleagues deserve special recognition for their courage and tenacity in bringing their vision of a WEVA World Congress, in their wonderful country. They welcomed more than 400 registrants. In addition, they provided WEVA with one of the best and amaizing social programm we ever had.

Intermediate meetings

We have used our own funds and funds from the AAEP, AVEF, BEVA, to further promote equine continuing education, through a new series of intermediate meetings. These meetings are intermediate, in that they are held between the WEVA World Congress and are intermediate in scope and content. Our commitment to these meetings has varied from helping with a single speaker, to working with the local organisers to provide an integrated programme and all speakers.

Since the inception of this programme, WEVA has been represented in :

• Meerut with India Association of Equine Practitionners in 2006 and at bangalore 2007 by Henrik Lehn-Jensen with the help of Julie Fjelborg and Jean-Marie Denoix with myself. The local organisation with Ravi Reddy made a great job.
• Bogota Oct 2006 (Colombia) with Fedequinas and Des Leadon.
• Valdivia Nov 2007 with Pr Oscar Araya and Melissa Hines, Warwick Bayly, Joe Pagan, William Moyer, Gary Norwood.
• Moscow Aug 2007 and St Petersburg May 2006 and 2007 with REVA's President, Ekaterina Zabegina, who has made an enormous contribution to the development of equine continuing education. We sent Jean-Marie Denoix, Fabrice Rossignol and ValŽrie Deniau with the help of AVEF.

Revised Statutes, Dues / Subscriptions and New Structures

The revised Statutes have been presented to the WEVA Board for discussion in Morocco. We have operated a system of Junior Vice President / President Elect, President and Senior Vice President / Immediate Past President, for the last two years. We recommend that this should be shortened to two years. We have separated the offices of Secretary and Treasurer. We have been very well served in both capacities, by Julie Fjeldborg and Warwick Bayly, respectively. Julie and Waz, special sincere thanks for all of your many services to this Association.

We have created a new sub-committee:

5.1 Past Presidents Advisory Committee

In accord with precedents in other similar equine veterinary associations, WEVA officers shall convene a meeting of Past Presidents at each bi-annual WEVA international congress, to draw on their advice and experience and to assist with continuity. This is a purely advisory committee and shall have no voting rights.

New members

We have two new members Vincenz GERBER from Switzerland and Ravi Reddi from India; welcome to them and hope they will have pleasure to participate in Weva aim.

Web site

The web site is not doing very well. We need more participation of each representative of national association and try to send news of intermediate meetings at Charles who is in charge of the site.

Conclusion

This report documents my period in office and marks the end of my time as your President. I am deeply indebted to each and every one of you, my fellow Board members and to all of those who have assisted WEVA for the last four years. It has been a very enjoyable privilege to work with you. It is a particular pleasure to note that my successor, Gary Norwood, has led us all by his example in fostering equine continuing education, in such an exemplary manner. I would like to add my special thanks to those that he will offer for all of us, in Moscow, Ekaterina Zabegina and Tim Greet's Scientific Committee for giving us such an exciting 10th WEVA Congress in Moscow.

Yours sincerely,
Richard (R. A. CORDE)

P.S. With special thanks to Des Leadon