Hi everybody and welcome to another incredibly exciting episode of that chat. I think this is probably the episode that I have been most anticipating in in all of those that we've done so far. And the reason being is that this is a huge episode for us.

We are delighted to be joined by Leanne Fisher, who is the head of education and events for New Zealand Veterinary Association. And has also been in charge of, of project managing the organisation of World Veterinary Association Congress in 2020. And joining me alongside Leanne, we've got the founder and CEO and digital visionary head of webinar vet, Anthony Chadwick.

So, I want to start off just by sort of setting the scene for you. We have had the immense pleasure as an organisation at the webinar vet of being awarded and and given the trust of both the New Zealand Veterinary Association and the World Veterinary Association to to host this congress digitally. But I'm actually gonna take you back 4 years from the moment that we're at now.

To 2016, when New Zealand was, was awarded the, you know, the prestigious honour of of hosting, WeAC, and Leanne, I just wonder if you could talk me through how it felt to be awarded. Why you guys were awarded it, and, and what that process has been, because of course congresses don't just come to happen overnight. There's a massive organisational infrastructure over that time, and yours has been over 4 years.

So I just wonder if you could talk me through that whole process and the ups and downs. Yeah, sure, thank you. Yeah, we got awarded in 2016.

It was an interesting process. We were rung up by WVA and asked whether we would be interested in hosting the congress in 2020. So we actually didn't have to bid for it, which was unusual.

So we did a due diligence and put some papers up to the board around the risk, and, the reputational risk and, the reputational benefits, for New Zealand for bringing this Congress and the benefits to New Zealand tourism as well. And so we decided that it was worth the risk. We thought it would be really good for the New Zealand economy and New Zealand tourism, and really good for our veterinarians in New Zealand to get exposure to an international congress, .

Which is always what we try to achieve, you know, if we can bring international conferences to New Zealand to our own veterinarians, it's a benefit to everyone. So over the last 4 years, we've, I've been to South Korea to the World Veterinary Congress in 2017. I went to Barcelona, we went to Costa Rica.

So I've been very fortunate to travel during this time and look at how other countries Who's running the World Veterinary Congress and bring that knowledge back to New Zealand. And we started planning the Congress by appointing David Senior, who is from America, as the chair of the scientific Programittee, and Charlotte Camply, the NZBA CPD academic director, was appointed as the liaison here in New Zealand. And we set up a scientific programme committee from Our New Zealand veterinarians and started developing the programme to include international speakers and New Zealand speakers.

We wanted to keep a New Zealand flavour and have talks about pasture-based grazing and that, which is a lot of countries don't have. We're leaders in the dairy production area. So we want to showcase what us as New Zealand are also doing.

So that tape was finished about a year ago with the programme. So as you can imagine, we've got to have the programme done about a year before we go out so that we can start marketing and start promoting. The Congress because people come for the programme and as the main driver for registering for a conference, but when they leave, they talk about the social functions and the connections that they made and the discussions they had with colleagues.

So we knew that the programme was vitally important. Our team had done a marvellous job of getting some very key speakers from around the world to come to New Zealand to join our congress. So we were really excited about the calibre.

What we're here to offer. So have you kind of faced any, obviously that's, you know, I, I think you're sort of downplaying the extent of work that goes in and certainly looking at the, the extent of the, the, you know, the lecture, sort of programme down there. I think, you know, there's obviously a lot of, of plaudits to be taken there and certainly a massive er organisational endeavour, .

But obviously sort of before now and and sort of taking COVID-19 out of the picture, what, what challenges had you kind of faced with that beforehand? Well, we had a major challenge with our venue, so New Zealand is building a big new international convention centre, and it was supposed to be open in December last year. So last year in April, they told us that they would not be ready for our Congress.

So they sent us into a bit of a spin because there was no We couldn't identify any other venue in New Zealand that would actually hold a conference, holding 13 streams. It's not a small conference, so that, of course, left us in a panic and we were wondering whether we would actually have to take the Congress overseas, but we managed to work with two destinations to come up with an alternative plan. And we were very fortunate that the OTS centre in Auckland worked really well with us and was able to deliver a good option for us.

So that caused a lot of stress, 12 months out from a major event, and then the International Conference centre actually ended up, a fire started and so we were fortunate we had moved. . I was gonna say it it it almost sounds like you've been sort of receiving multiple messages from on high, yeah, on the comments, and, and yet, you know, you've, you've pressed on, you've, you've found yourself in this position, everything's sorted, you get to the middle of March 2020, you know, you're, you're almost at the point where you can stick your feet up and go, right, OK, we've just got to wait for this to start now and then it all kicks off again.

And and then there's the small matter of a global pandemic that seems to render the world completely static, . What goes through your mind at that point? Well, you know, we, you're right, we were at the stage of kind of like, OK, we're nearly there, all the satchels had arrived in New Zealand, so I've got 2000 satchels sitting in a storage.

Container, you know, all the speaker gifts had been done and they're all sitting there and, you know, and all the menus for the for the conference dinners and all the catering had been done, all the exhibitors were all organised and so, you know, it takes, it does take 4 years of planning to get this all done and so when the decision was made to cancel, I will admit. I did cry. I, I, I took it, it was kind of like a personal hit because you, you, you, you put so much energy and time into this, and you, you kind of treat it as like a personal target and goal that and I love organising conferences and I love getting everyone together and I love to see everyone having a great time, .

And people making those connections, you know, and it's such a great gratitude when you spend hours to organise something, to see people come out smiling, to having a good time, having at those dinners and connecting with new people and so I was devastated, . Really devastated and the day that we were actually supposed to be holding the conference, I did sit down sit down here in my lounge because I'm isolated and hosted the congress, and had a wee tear at the same time, . So yes, it has been devastating to see the Congress not go ahead personally face to face, but I am so excited to see this Congress go online.

I've got a new sense of hope and excitement. So that probably gives me a great window of opportunity to, to sort of. Shift the the angle of conversation, and I have to be nice cos the chap that I'm interviewing is my boss, but I know full well that Anthony's passion is, is education and supporting the veterinary profession and making an investment and leaving a legacy, and I think, you know, that is, it's, it's no mean feat.

So Anthony. Obviously, you know, you. You're in the digital sphere.

We from the outside looking in, can see all of these conferences that are falling by the wayside. What, what's the thought process for you as a leader of an organisation to look and say, right, OK, we're in this sphere, what can we do? Yeah, I mean, obviously, you know, I feel, Leanne's pain because, you know, that's such a huge amount of preparation, but you know thank goodness that all that preparation was done because.

You know, clearly we've, we've kind of turned the conference round in about 1 month, 3 to 4 weeks, which we could not have done, but for, you know, all the great work that's already been done by, by Leanne and the team. I suppose when something like this hits, you know, you can sit down and, and I think it's quite right to have a little cry, but then after the crying finishes, you have to say, well, OK, what else can we do here? And obviously Lean, you know, and the team reached out to us.

I think it was a slightly serendipitous conversation with, with Lotte that got things started. But, you know, I, I, I think you have to then move very quickly and make the decision that, you know, something's happened that's really not great, something outside of your control. What's inside your control is how you react to it, and we found the team at NZVA have been great at just reacting, you know, very quickly and.

You know, again, my word at the moment is serendipitous. You know, we've spent the last 7 years doing virtual conferences, so there's probably nobody else on the planet could do this in this short of time because we've done it before, you know, we're not starting from kind of ground zero, so I, I think we were very fortunate that, you know, serendipity has played its part to bring us all together and. Give us the opportunity, in a real roller coaster sort of way of putting a programme together, cutting it up, dicing it, throwing it in the air, catching those bits and then putting it together and, You know, I think Leanne and Lottie and the team put together a fabulous conference, and we've actually been able to take that and actually create, you know, a fantastic festival conference out of what, you know, they had done.

So I'm, as Leanne said, really thrilled and excited for for the next. 3 or 4 weeks. And I think something you touched on there is really interesting because actually you said, you know, this is a, a festival conference.

Now of course, in the veterinary profession, when we go to a congress, I, from a personal perspective, I can't speak for everybody else. I love the hustle and bustle and I love the intensity. But at the same time I find myself sat there after 2 days at a conference, absolutely shattered because you've gone to 1000 stores, you've spoken to 30 people, you've drank umpteen glasses of free wine and champagne, and, and, and you're looking at that circumstance and you kind of feel like you've almost not had a chance to stop, digest what's happened.

And, and sort of, you know, actually evaluate the the the value of that to you as an individual. So what, what was the thought process behind sort of turning it from, you know, quite an intense physical congress into a more sort of extended process of a festival. Well, I think, and obviously I'm, you know, come in as well, but I think it was very much based around the fact that we knew there'd be a lot of people who, you know, are in isolation at home, locked down.

You know, some vets obviously are out working, but some, you know, aren't. And, and so we wanted to give people the opportunity of being able to, you know, have an extended time to go in. You know, to the live webinars, to pretty much to everyday live, in the morning and in the evening, whether you're in New Zealand or in the UK obviously, if you're in America, it's different times again.

And then put a lot of the material, because obviously, in a very short space of time, there was well over 100 hours of material. So we wanted to also then put a lot of it in as recording so that people could go at their leisure and look at it. And I think, You know, one of the big pluses of, of doing it this way is that you record everything so you allow people to almost go back over stuff so that they don't forget it.

You know, there's a danger, as you've said at the conference, you're rushing around everywhere, you go in and watch two or three lectures, but as you walk out the door, I mean, probably not you, Ben, because you're still a young 30 year old, but as you get older, you begin to forget things very quickly. And, and so having the videos to go over stuff, to really delve into it, I think really deepens the experience, but we're hoping to kind of add in some exciting seminars and obviously hoping to get a really good social thing going by, you know, the social media that we can use to get real engagement that way. So I, I hope it's gonna be a real support for the profession, you know, in what is a.

Terribly, terribly difficult and and trying time at the moment. I don't know what you think, Leanne, but that was kind of our, I think that was my take on it. Yeah, definitely.

We want to enable veterinary professionals around the world to make significant inroads into their CPD while they're at home, . You know, a lot of events and conferences have had to be cancelled, so we want to make sure that people around the world have the opportunity to still learn and you know some of that part of our conference was race accredited, so we've managed to actually transfer that race accreditation into our online learning, which is also exciting to have that component as well. And, and obviously, you know, when you look at conferences, you know, I've I've had.

The great pleasure of of being able to go to a conference in Singapore at one stage, I've been to, One in the states and and and everything else I've been to in the UK and for the vast majority of vets, we tend to only ever really go to CPD events in our own country because of course, you know, these things aren't cheap, especially when you're looking at, you know, travel potentially to the other side of the world, and yet, you know, we find ourselves in a circumstance here where, We have a an opportunity for a global veterinary conference where every vet and nurse in the world has potential access to this. So, what, what to you is success from from this congress now, Leanne? I think success for us is seeing lots of veterinarians.

Engaged in the Congress, listening to the presentations, and you know maybe making connections with other veterinarians. One thing we have also with face to face Congress is you've got lots of streams and people get conflicted because they want to go to one stream, but it's one talk, but it's conflicting with another talk, so they miss out. So this way that they can Go back and listen to all the talks without missing out, which is a great opportunity.

And Anthony from your side of things, obviously, you know, I, I dare say that it would be fair to say and sort of assess that you are possibly one of the, the greatest vets at networking, you know, obviously, you know, you've got But a network of people that includes people on the other side of the world. Now, it's very easy to network at a physical congress. It's a bit more difficult when you've had a few too many glasses of wine, and you're struggling to remember who it is that you're looking at without staring at the name badge in a very rude manner.

But to you, what, what sort of. How would you encourage people to network through a digital atmosphere? You know, you're right, I, I enjoy meeting people, you know, I get energy from that.

I'm, I'm quite active on, on LinkedIn, and it's been great because I've been sending messages out to people and, you know, I think it was 2 days ago I was having a discussion with a vettino man about VAT. So, you know, he's bought the ticket for the, the conference, so, you know, a vet who possibly wouldn't have gone to New Zealand, you know, he's in Oman, he's come to it. There are so many opportunities now for us, you know, the world is much smaller, and, you know, I'm sure we're going to be very active on Facebook, on, on, the various channels, but I think LinkedIn is a, is a great place to grow, to grow the, to grow the network and it.

You know, for me a success is is also just having that opportunity of somebody who wouldn't have been able to go to this conference can go to it and actually learn from some of the best vets in the world. I mean, the programme is exceptional. You know, I was just looking, because we, we've just about got it together.

We knew who was going to be speaking, but obviously we had to work out when they would do it with the live sessions, and then obviously we've been putting the recorded sessions, you know, into the site, getting people to record them over these last couple of weeks, and, and we'll still be doing some, some as the conference starts. But, you know, we've got David Begg's dairy farming, as Leanne said at the beginning, you know, the New Zealand. Cattle industry is renowned throughout the world.

David Mag's on ophthalmology, so I, I was fortunate enough to spend some time with Ron Ofre at the SEVC conference in October, November time. Obviously when we could travel to conferences, and he very, very kindly gave me his ophthalmology textbook. And one of the guys who've written the textbook with him is David Mag, so you've got, you know, the guy who's written the Bible of veterinary ophthalmology.

Going to be talking at this conference. One of my old colleagues at university, Chris P is gonna be doing loads on equine dentistry. We've got Neil Sargeson, who's a professor at the Royal Dick talking about cheap medicine.

So. We've got so many good lecturers, I could name Josh Slater as well, Joe Collins, who's a greater er vet who, who looks after a lot of the stuff with the donkey sanctuary. And, and of course my old discipline, dermatology, we've got Debbie Simpson.

So, the number of speakers is amazing, just to, to go on, and I know I am going on a bit, but Julius Liptak, again, he's written the textbook on oncology. So, you know, we have got some exceptional teachers. And it's such a great experience.

I mean, we're also doing the two, summits, the One Health summit, which is all going to be about global warming, which is really pertinent at the moment. And then we're doing an equine welfare, for, seminar, Saturday, I think it's 2nd of May. It's, it depends whether you're in New Zealand or England, so you have to kind of get that into your head as well.

But, you know, even as a vet who doesn't see horses, You know, the welfare of animals obviously is important to all vets, so I'm sure, you know, I'm really looking forward to the equine welfare seminar. Rachel's a bit upset because I, it's two Saturday nights where I will definitely be sitting up here, enjoying the lectures, but I'm sure, . I'll have other opportunities to, to see her as well.

We're we're seeing more of each other because we're in, we're in the house together. So I'm really excited about the programme, but I'm loving the fact that we're getting vets from all over the world coming and also getting excited about the conference. So for me, you know.

Provided we can make all the technology work, which, you know, we're we're obviously done a lot of, the actual programme and, and getting that interaction from vets over the world, you know, makes it for me a successful conference. And I think that sort of, you know, I mean, from, from the outside looking in, you're sort of the veterinary profession is. It is different in every country, you know, the legal side of things, the, the, the sort of, you know, the structure of the industry in that particular country, the various different, you know, facets where the strengths are, you know, you touched on the fact that New Zealand is very strong in farm animal I and of course vouch for the quality of New Zealand land.

But there are Different nuances to every veterinary sphere, and yet we are one veterinary global community and I think actually what's what's really I, I found incredibly heartening in recent weeks is the fact that vets in different countries have really looked to support one another. So what is the. What, what's the overriding sense that you guys have got for, and I'm gonna ask you first Leanne, if you were to say I want somebody to get one thing out of this conference, what, what would that be?

I think for me it would be to learn something new for them and Yeah, I think that would be the main thing because that's what it's all about, you know, that we're providing CPD that is quality and that they can learn from. So yeah, for me it would be learn something new. Well, I, you know, I agree in the end, one of our aims is to have the world's most confident vets, and, and the reality is, the more CPD you do, and you know, you obviously have the best teachers there teaching you, mentoring you, you know, we become better vets and by doing that, you know, we can look after our, our animals better.

And so animal welfare improves, so. And it's interesting, you know, I was at BSAVA this year, well, last year for the conference, and there was a poster there and it actually said, you know, what are positive stressors and what are negative stressors. And right at the top of the list for positive stressors was CPD.

So, you know, good quality CPD people learning actually makes them much more positive about being a vet cause they go into that consulting room, or, you know, onto that farm. Knowing that they're more than capable of working out the problem that they may find there. So that is, that for me is the key.

We're all lifelong learners. We're, you know, a lot of vets and nurses very committed to staying very current, and, you know, that's a huge satisfaction for me if, if I can be a little part of that. I think one thing to also mention with the World Vet Congress, it's the first time ever that they've had veterinary nurses and large animal veterinary technicians included in the programme.

So when we, when we were developing the programme, you know, normally we include those in our annual conferences here in New Zealand. We include vet nurses in large animal vettes. So for us it was, it was a no-brainer like why wouldn't we include them in the World Vet Congress as well.

So, you know, this Congress is not just for veterinarians, it's for the whole veterinary profession. You know, so nurses can join and learn, and there's a business stream that practise managers can learn. So it really is all about the veterinary profession and giving it the sort of tagline of veterinary professionals of the world unite.

You know, we're uniting around learning, but we're also hopefully going to get to know each other through. You know, the app that New Zealand Veterinary Association developed for the conference, which will allow interaction, obviously Facebook, social media, chances to talk to the speakers through social media as well, so, You know, it is very much a veterinary professional event. It's, it's not just the vets, you know, we, we forget nurses at our peril.

They're such important members of the profession, you know, and obviously practise managers and, and, you know, other people involved with the profession as well. So, I think it's gonna be, it's gonna be a great event. I'm certainly getting very excited about it.

We're only a couple of days away from er. The one health summit. Yes, in New Zealand we have to be up at 6 o'clock in the morning on a Sunday to watch it, so I'll be there.

Just imagine the positive mentality that you'll be able to start the day with then Leanne. I know, right? You might well be exhausted by lunch, but at least you'll start the day on a high.

I mean, I personally I think that is, you know, a great way to sum up and and to wind up this episode with, you know, that real tagline of the fact that this is the vets of the world united, but actually it's the veterinary family of the world uniting, you know, there is something for everybody in this congres. And, and the fact that it's digital means you can go back to it more and more more times in the future. You can properly digest that that information and use it to provide real insight to your career.

And of course that, you know, that is what CPD is all about. It's all about informing your future decisions and, and, you know, your, your career in the aftermath of that experience. So.

I am really excited to see how this goes. I think, you know, the first ever digital global veterinary congress. I don't think it gets much more exciting than that when you're involved in a digital education business, .

I wish you both every, every facet of luck. I don't think you need it because I think the, you know, the, the premise behind it is so strong that, you know, it is great to see businesses and, and organisations coming together in times of real global concern. To unite and to really look to support the profession.

So thank you both very much. Thank you organisations very much. I'm very excited to see what the next 3 weeks of festival activity bring, and I wish you both every health and happiness.

Thank you very much for joining. Take care, bye bye, bye bye.