Become a volunteer with us!

25 September 2022

The governance structure of your Association relies on people from within the profession wanting to get involved and joining the 350 plus volunteers who help the Association achieve its aims, its what makes BSAVA what it is, and allows us to have input from those people who are living the experience of being a vet or nurse at this moment in time. With this in mind, we would like to highlight the current ways in which you can get involved in the Association, we would love to talk to you if any of the volunteer roles below appeals to you and you feel you can contribute.

A New graduate clinical resource’ working group is being created to review the current PDP resources to select the most appropriate content to retain and which to remove. The working group will also identify BSAVA Resources which can be used to supplement the bank of resources available to new graduates. The working group will conduct this work and then a task and finish group will review the resources every 1 – 2 years and it would be useful for some members of the original group to remain for the review.  Volunteers will be offered a Learn Online course of their choice as a ‘thankyou’ for your time, and this may appeal to those people who have an interest in supporting new graduates.

We would like to ask for volunteers to join an “Insights Group” which can be used as an informal sounding board to tell us how we can better serve the profession and who we can approach to ask for feedback. We would like to encourage people to come forward from across all career stages within the profession to give us a rounded view. This comes under the banner of micro volunteering and there is no formal term to the period of volunteering or requirement to attend meetings, we would just like your opinion and feedback.

Regional Committees support the local communities of members and non-members by the provision of CPD and with the return of physical CPD courses this Autumn and into 2023, which supplement the virtual courses we will continue to offer, many regional committees are looking for people to join these local committees to plan activities. This is a wonderful way to network locally and to help shape the activities of these local committees. There is a time commitment to being part of your regional committee, attendance at meetings, although some are virtual and attending CPD and other events to be the face of BSAVA on the day, but you will connect with local people and have fun at the same time. Most regions will have space for new people, but we would particularly like to hear from people in the South East, Metropolitan, East Midlands, East Anglia, and Northern Ireland.

There are two Council Committees, Volunteer Development Committee (VDC) and Audit and Risk (ARC) who are both have a requirement for new committee members. VDC deals with the recruitment and development of senior volunteers and some governance aspects and ARC provides the checks and balances for the Association. VDC holds three meetings a year and ARC hold four, some of which are virtual and there is some work in between meetings which is undertaken via email.

The Association has strong links with its Affiliated Groups and the Affiliate Group Co-ordinator role is one of coordination and communication, so if these are your skills then this may be of interest. The postholder will report directly to Board via a nominated Board Member and is key in ensuring that we maintain those strong links and communication channels.

For more information on any of the posts highlighted or to find out how else you can get involved, please email volunteer@bsava.com – a warm welcome awaits. There will be more opportunities over the coming months and these will be highlighted in newsletters.