RAS of NSW Royal Easter Show Veterinary Panel (1)

Featured Image: RAS of NSW Veterinary Panel RES 2017. Their first names are clockwise from back left: Chuck, Anne, Kym, Edwina (‘Eddie’), Emily, Danae (RAS Staff), Mark, Al and David.

I mentioned in my tribute to Dr Anne Fawcett on this site the egress of RAS of NSW Veterinary Panel since the first Sydney Royal Easter Show (SRES) at Homebush in 1998. I made my debut as RAS Councillor at the final SRES at Moore Park in 1997. Not surprisingly many changes have taken place as inevitable components of natural ageing and gradual attrition. The Senior Veterinary Councillors in 1997 were Honorary Councillors Roy Watts, Len Pockley and Andrew Gibson plus Councillor Frank Hooke as Chairman of the VCM.

It was part of my early brief as an ingénue Veterinary Councillor to ‘involve’ the undergraduate veterinary students at Sydney University. This came at the request of the Horse, Cattle and Domestic Animal Committees of the RAS of NSW. I think I can modestly claim some success. I realise how many of the cohort now ‘dominate’ the RAS of NSW RES veterinary panel. (See above). Many senior players had also been associated with my ‘old’ Scone practice either as Veterinarians or Undergraduate Students; or both. Alan Simson and the ‘Right Honourable’ Jamie Barnes fall into this category. Jamie’s family have been intimately involved with the RAS of NSW for several generations.

The current panel is the eclectic team built by Dr Mark Schembri who I wrote about earlier in my blog. It’s genuinely meritocratic. Now having attained ‘the sanguine twilight zone of benign self-imposed genteel redundancy’ I confess to solipsistic sentiments of reflected pride?