RCVS Trust turns 50

The RCVS Trust launched its Golden Jubilee year celebrations with an author’s evening - with Professor Donald Broom, the world’s first professor of animal welfare, presenting the major developments in animal welfare over the past decade to an audience of veterinarians and animal welfare experts.

That same evening the charity unveiled a £50,000 fundraising campaign for its veterinary educational and animal welfare programmes, fronted by James Yeates, a 2006 Trust grant-holder who received a grant from the RCVS Trust to fund his PhD in veterinary medical ethics in 2006.

James has taken on the challenge of finding 1,000 people to donate £50 to the campaign. He said: “Obviously, that’s quite a lot of people, so it’s a very ambitious thing to be doing but, of course, it is very worthwhile. So, to start the ball rolling – and despite now being an impoverished residency student – I’ll start by donating the first £50.”

Gerri McHugh, Director of the Trust said: “We are indebted to James for accepting the £50,000 Golden Jubilee challenge, and very much hope that lots and lots of veterinary surgeons and others will be inspired to support him with this very ambitious initiative.” To help James reach his target, visit http://www.justgiving.com/jamesraises50k  to donate your £50 or send a cheque to the RCVS Trust office.

A little later in February the RCVS Trust was delighted to receive a cheque for nearly £1,700 from NOAH. This generous sum was raised through a £1 donation levied on the sale of additional copies of the NOAH Data Compendium

Phil Sketchley, CEO of NOAH, and Trustee of the charity, said “We were delighted by the level of support given to the Trust by the veterinary profession and others who bought extra copies of the book - and indeed by NOAH member companies, many of which bought quite considerable numbers of copies themselves. We have been very pleased to facilitate raising these funds for such an excellent cause.”

A second £50,000 fundraising challenge was launched early in March and was kick-started with a £1,000 donation from an anonymous member of RCVS Council.

Later that month, the Trust awarded over £1,000,000 to nearly 60 innovative and high-calibre research and animal welfare projects in the UK and overseas to mark its Golden Jubilee year.

Gerri McHugh said “We are delighted to have hit the £1 million mark this year which compares very favourably with the £60,000 we were disbursing five short years ago. This significant uplift in funding has enabled us to fund a much wider range of innovative initiatives at the seven UK veterinary schools and in practices across the UK.

In addition to a £250,000 investment in six new UK residencies and nearly £120,000 across nine new Blue Sky Research projects, we have released an additional £500,000 to fund two Golden Jubilee Awards – one at the Royal (Dick) School of Veterinary Studies looking at canine ageing and regeneration and another at Liverpool Veterinary School in veterinary pathogen genomics. We have also been able to fund a number of extremely worthy overseas projects through our network of charity partners including SPANA, Wildlife Vets International and the Worldwide Veterinary Service.

We are very pleased to have made a significant investment in a range of welfare initiatives for the veterinary profession; these include an evaluation of young graduate wellbeing, the development of support schemes for recent graduates and a continued commitment to the excellent Lancaster Final Year Seminar.”

The Trust then marked its Golden Jubilee with a champagne lunch for grant-holders and donors at BSAVA Congress in April.

A full calendar of events is planned for the remainder of the year, including a Yorkshire Dales sponsored walk in June, a team of twelve runners in the British 10K in July, a trio of new-graduate skydivers in August, a Golf Day at Beau Desert Golf Club in September, a walk from Edinburgh to London, also in September, one runner in the inaugural Royal Parks Half-Marathon in October, and a sportsman’s lunch at Twickenham Rugby Club in November.