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NSA Sheep 2010
XLVets attended the NSA Sheep 2010 event held at Malvern on 3rd August. The XLVets stand focused on our FarmSkills training programme for farmers. On the day we had three ‘mini-bite’ challenges – giving visitors the chance to learn a new skill and take something practical home with them to use on the farm.
The first mini-bite challenge was a ‘guess the weight of the lambs’ competition. Visitors were asked to estimate the weight of two lambs penned on the stand. The lambs were both born at the same time, on the same farm and reared together. The only difference – one was a pure Dorset lamb, the other a Dorset x Zwartbles. The competition aimed to highlight the need to know accurate weights for calculating worming doses. Amazingly there was 11kg difference between the two lambs – not obvious at all from looking at them! Many people underestimated the weights of the lambs on the day, highlighting the need to weigh lambs and dose according to the heaviest in a group to avoid underdosing.
 
 
There was also the chance to see the XLVets Sterimatic system in action. Demonstrations (using a toy sheep this time!!) showed farmers how Sterimatic provides a system for vaccination guns where the needle is cleaned and disinfected before each animal is injected. The Sterimatic set works with existing equipment; fitting almost all vaccinator guns. The demonstrations proved extremely popular throughout the day.
Finally, the stand would not be complete without the XLVets juggler. Back by popular demand following Beef Expo 2010, the juggler taught many people a new skill and provided a reminder to farmers of the diverse range of FarmSkills practical-based training courses that are available (although juggling is not one of them!)
 
The XLVets stand was extremely busy throughout the day and big thank you must go to those XLVet members who helped on the stand on the day; Dominic Alexander & Roger Serres, Belmont; Bryony Kendall, Tyndale; Iain Richards, Westmorland; Mike Thorne, Rutland and Kat Bazeley, Synergy Farm Health.
Great Yorkshire Show
For the first time ever, XLVets exhibited at the North’s premier agricultural show – the Great Yorkshire Show from 13 to 15 July. The three Yorkshire practice, Minster Vets, Bishopton Vets and Kingsway Vets, joined forces to exhibit a stand championing the excellence in practice, people and business support that XLVets practices offer all their clients. Artwork included profiles of vets, nurses, support staff and farmers – plus a good showing for FarmSkills, which enjoyed recruiting farmers to new courses for Autumn 2010.
As well as offering the “best cup of tea” on the showground, activities included guessing the old fashioned veterinary instruments, and learning how to lamb a (model) sheep and do a caesarean on a toy cow! Despite the rather unpredictable weather a great, if exhausting, time was had by all!
 
XLVets AGM 8th - 10th June 2010
This year's XLVets AGM was held in Nice, France. The two day event covered the formal AGM ,there was time for interaction and discussion between group members and a visit to Monaco on the second evening.
We are very grateful to Virbac for their kind hospitality and support for this meeting
Below are pictures from the event:
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Royal Cornwall Show 10th - 12th June 2010
Report from Stuart Gough, Calweton Veterinary Group
Somewhere in the region of 125,000 people visited the Royal Cornwall show this year; at times it felt like every single one of them wanted to stop to rectal ‘daisy’! As one of the last true, large agricultural shows the farming fraternity from far and wide were in attendance.
Cracking weather, a perfect location adjacent to the main livestock ring and enthusiastic ‘staffing’ meant the XLVets stand was the place to be! This provided a fabulous showcase for XLVets in the South West and also the ‘Farmskills’ project. Situated in ‘AI alley’ nestling amongst the breed societies and AI companies and adjacent to the main cattle ring, we were treated to a constant flow of interest from livestock farmers and associated trades.
 
Beef Expo 2010, Auction Mart, Hexham
Beef Expo 2010 was held at the Auction Mart, Hexham in Northumberland, where XLVets attended to promote their farmer training workshops, FarmSkills. Andrew Curwen, Roger Scott and his team from Scott Mitchell, John MacFarlane and his team from Alnorthumbria, Bridget Taylor (Wright & Morten) and Richard Knight (Westmorland) came along and wore their vivid green FarmSkills t-shirts to raise awareness of XLVets and FarmSkills with the farmers who came along. As well as talking about the variety of workshops and knowledge sharing that is part of XLVets and FarmSkills, the stand was enlivened by our very own FarmSkills juggler! He drew attention to the fact that organising time for learning and skills development can be a bit of a juggle on farm and gave farmers the chance to improve their multi-tasking skills by learning how to keep more than one juggling ball in the air at once. In addition, Roger Scott & John MacFarlane gave two seminar presentations about learning and skills development which were very popular with the farmers who attended. Beef Expo 2010 was a huge success with many enquiries received for FarmSkills training programmes across the country.
 
Marathon de Sables Success
Congratulations to XLVet member Gavin Durston, Thrums Veterinary Group who has just completed the Marathon des Sables. Gavin re-lives his experience below;
Marathon des Sables a 250km self sufficient, 6 day race across the Moroccan Sahara desert. I had to carry everything needed for 1 week of racing including food, sleeping gear and survival equipment including emergency flare and anti venom pump! My rucksack weight was 11kg at the start of the race.
The organisers kindly supplied a shared tent, water and body repatriation insurance!! We were on around 10 litres of water and 20g of salt per day.
This photo was taken at the start of the 52 mile stage which took me just over 17 hours. The temperature was 35C that morning at 8.30am and was to rise to just over 50C. This was after 3 consecutive days of 19, 22 and 25 miles racing across flat desert, dunes, hill climbs including one roped hill section with an average of 25% gradient. I did then get 1 rest day before a marathon and finished off with a half marathon across the largest dunes in Morocco.
The second picture was taken around 11pm after 13 hours of racing so you can understand the deliberate mistake!
Although there were a couple of really tough miserable moments, it was a great experience and I am busy accumulating brownie points at home while looking for another race or doing the MdS again!
I was raising money for my local community association, Eassie, Nevay and Kirkinch Community Association. We are a very small rural area with limited facilities. Our old hall was about to fall down and we needed to raise around £500K. The fund raising team has done a fantastic job getting us close to that total, so I thought I would go the extra mile(!) to help. So far I've raised around £6500.
National Cattle Mobility Event April 2010
Following on from the successful events in 2008 and 2009, the third National Cattle Mobility Event took place at Reaseheath College, near Nantwich, Cheshire on Thursday, 8 April 2010. The event is described as a must for all those that can make an impact on dairy cattle mobility, including farmers, foot trimmers and veterinary surgeons, and over 200 delegates attended on the day. XLVets had a stand in the main conference hall with member practice, Lambert, Leonard & May and a copy of XLVets farm newsletter ‘Livestock Matters’ was given to every delegate.
 
Nottingham Careers Day - 31st March 2010
A big thank you to the XLVet members Julian Rishworth, Minster Veterinary Practice, Tom Craig, Scarsdale Veterinary Group, Chris Parker, Scarsdale Veterinary Group and David Stockton, Chapelfield Veterinary Group who represented the whole group at the first careers day for Final year students and Nottingham vet school.
It was a lively day and great fun discussing with students their hopes and fears of their first job. These Nottingham students will be graduating in the summer of 2011. And we reckon that we will be seeing more of some of them in the years to come...
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