Not My College ?

After years ... nae decades ... of minimal communication, obfuscation and opacity, the RCVS appears to have turned over a new leaf.  Am I imagining things or are the newsletters (two in a month!)  (here)  and  (here)  generally more informative than before ? It certainly seems so but only time will tell if it's a fluke or a trend.  Ditto the plans to actually invite the membership to participate in consultative meetings  (here) . Again, let's see how it pans out. If it's over-subscribed how/who will do the selection, will the real vets make the final cut? Let's hope they kick the habit of a lifetime and actually listen to the real (practicing) profession.  A repetition of their  (Friends and Family)  'Summit'  of 2021 would be just too embarrassing.  If you want to read more posts, click on the arrow 🠈 on the top left of the page or on the 'MORE POSTS' button at the bottom. If you want updates from NotMyCollege? click on the menu top left and select f

  College spends £20 million on extravagant new HQ - see here Who cares if the practicing profession is on its knees, be of good cheer, the RCVS has just purchased its new HQ in fashionable Clerkenwell, home to global mega-brands such as  Fred Perry , Unilever , Microsoft  and Linkedin.  A snip at £20 million   it boasts 20,000 square feet of ‘media style offices’ and is well suited to ‘remote and hybrid working.’ Which begs the question, if the future emphasis will be on remote and hybrid working, why did we not buy the same space for a third of the price in Leeds or Manchester ?  It would be nice to know what arguments were advanced and by whom to justify this grotesque indulgence  (Pay up suckers) Perhaps the ‘stylish glass box penthouse with sensational views across Central London,’  (see background photo), or the 'Fashionable residential schemes, boutique hotels and high-class restaurants with an unparalleled choice of cuisines,' had something to do with it.  Unfortunate

  The College is a secretive organisation, it hates parting with information; fact. Whether it's member's questions or muzzling the Council with threats of disciplinary proceedings, the RCVS is an information black-hole. So the decision to stage public Question Time  events seemed like the first glimmerings of hope. The format was simple, invite the membership, dish up some food and let them loose ... well not quite Lord Copper, not quite. The invitations went out and the food appeared but that's where any resemblance to the advertised event stopped. Each of the evenings I attended opened with a question which had (so we were told) been submitted in writing before the meeting began. Initially I was a bit confused. Why should a question submitted anonymously by someone who couldn't be bothered to attend in person take precedence over those who had made the  effort ? Silly me. By taking control of the narrative from the get-go, the College was able to steer the conversat

'RCVS council elections could be scrapped in a governance shake-up that may help to secure long-sought reform of veterinary sector legislation.' So says the Vet Times. Voting is old hat apparently. According to the RCVS and their supporters  the way forward is by scrapping the final, threadbare vestiges of democratic accountability and handing everything over to appointees. Sounds legit. The appointments process, like everything the  RCVS  does, will be totally transparent of course ... totally ... and if you believe that I have a bridge to sell you.  The College doesn't like sharing information so we are unlikely to know which of those paragons of democracy are trying to disenfranchise us (update*) . However reading between the lines I think we can safely number the following fab five on the side of the angels.  Stephen May; S aid he was worried about the risk of a lack of accountability. Olivia Cook;  Warned that it could also reinforce perceptions of a college  ivory t

The veterinary profession is in trouble. Put simply there are too few of us to run the surgeries, visit the farms or perform the public health duties on which so much of British industry depends. It’s been going this way for decades, but rather than tackle the difficult business of structural reform we imported the solution instead. At one point more than half of all vets registering to practice in the UK came from the EU, post Brexit that number plummeted by two thirds. The spike in pet ownership during Covid was the last straw.  In November 2021 the profession’s governing body, the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons, convened a ‘summit’ meeting in London to address the crisis. After some party games to get everybody in the mood, the eighty handpicked ‘stakeholders’ were invited to ‘co-create’ and ‘ideate,’ to ‘look for the thoughts on the edge of their thinking’ and to come up with innovative solutions to ‘wicked problems.’   If ugly neologisms, infantile role-play and meaningle