Getting used to the transition from IVSA President to Secretary General

Some of you may know that I was the IVSA President last year. I can truly say I have never worked for anything as hard in my life as I have for IVSA during my presidency. I had mixed feelings when I closed my president email account for the last time and handed over the password to Anil. I am happy to handover all my hard work to Anil and see him make IVSA grow even more, but of course I was also sad to end that chapter of my life.

I have met such wonderful people, both students and vets and I do hope to meet them and all of you again. I am also grateful and excited to start this new year with the new ExCo. It is a great opportunity to learn something new from being a Secretary General and get to know these 7 other amazing officers a lot better.

For the past month I have been busy getting settled as Secretary General. This year, I am focusing on supporting Anil and the other ExCo officers with all their work and projects.

I always have troubles trying to precisely name what I’ve been working on but I will try! I have also been setting up the ExCo contacts, sending introductory emails to all IVSA Officials, and setting up the first online meeting and the first live meeting.

Besides ExCo tasks, I’ve also been working on the IFISO Management Team and as the co-chair of the IVSA Animal Welfare Conference. The latter, especially, has taken up quite a lot of my time Organizing events is something I enjoy a lot and I’m happy I have the opportunity to organize this conference.

I could write pages and pages of what I’ve been doing but I don’t want all of you to fall asleep on top of your laptops!

One of the biggest changes this year for me is to go back to class. Last year I had to drop classes for a full year and now I’m catching up. I am happy to be back at university, it is nice to have class again and have a proper schedule. I also have more time to spend on my education now that I’m no longer travelling as much as I was during my presidency. Doing anything other than studying is always a challenge in vet school but I can recommend everyone to try, it has really made my life more exciting and I have learned a lot about myself as well as the veterinary profession.

All and all, my main message would be: I am excited to see what this year will bring and learning from this great new position as Secretary General.