Vetnews | Junie 2024 4 « BACK TO CONTENTS Dear readers, This past month I had the opportunity to look a lot more carefully at the attendance figures of the past World Veterinary Association Congress. I realise that it may not be a 100% true reflection of the actual attendance but it is the closest to anything we have had before, without putting too much pressure on session chairs to physically count attendees. Some Figures in short: 13 Venues were used to give 341 presentations in 291 hours, brought by about 200 presenters. A formidable task indeed. That does not include the opening and closing events and excludes the Summits and Seminars. Today I tip my hat to every single person involved to make this Congress the great success it was. I am not going to single out anybody because there were people that were the face of the congress but many many more working behind the scenes. If it was not for the collective effort of every single person, it would not have been a success. The success goes beyond the organisation. You can plate up the best you can give but if nobody attends, it is all in vain. Here is another shout-out to the attendees. You came in drones, you were hungry to learn more, but you were also hungry to mingle and “kuier” with colleagues. That was very very visible in the great attendance of the social events. From the Opening cocktail to the Gala dinner, it was great to see congressgoers relaxing and enjoying themselves. Only to be back the next day and benefit from the presentations. The third grouping not to be forgotten is the exhibitors. During the congress, I noticed that the stalls were overflowing with attendees, and the tradespeople pulled the literal rabbit out of the hat to engage and entertain visitors. From baristas to games and the always-present giveaways. We hope you made good business. The fourth group is that of the presenters, you brought a variety of presentations for the attendees to enjoy and to learn from. When compiling the top attended presentations it made me extremely proud of how many were from our own people, our own veterinarians. Vets who took the time to prepare and deliver material for others to participate in. It was great. I spent some time analysing the figures and in this and the next few Vetnews’s, there will be a list of, according to the available statistics, to top attended presentations per broad category. If there is anything that tickles your fancy and you could get to the presentation, drop me an email and I will see if we can get the presenter to write an article on the subject. While not sure how accurate this is, but again from available figures, the top 10 attendees were as follows: Dr Rowena Watson with 40 presentations, Dr Anthony Davis with 36, Dr Emmanuelle Von Klemperer with 28, Dr Tanya Trenoweth and dr Henk Basson with 27, Dr Fabiola Quesada with 26 and Dr Kirsty Burton and Dr Tiksha Modi with 25. Again thank you for your hard work and participation May June be kind to you Andriette v From the Editor Editor’s notes / Redakteurs notas
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy OTc5MDU=