Become a Member

If you are interested in becoming a member then membership is open to all interested parties. Applications can be considered at any meeting of the Association’s Executive committee. Individuals can apply for membership.

Annual Membership Fees for SAAVA are:

Probationer & Fellow Membership – £60.00 per annum

Retired Membership – £18.00 per annum

The Membership year runs from 1st January to 31st December

How SAAVA delivers benefit to its members

The three ways in which SAAVA will deliver benefit to its members are seen to be: –

• AGM / Spring Update.

This will normally take place in the Spring/ early March.

The main issue would be the business part of the organisation’s requirement (the AGM has to deal with financial matters such as accounts, subscriptions as well as the accountability and election of officers, etc). It must also deliver a worthwhile key note speech to encourage attendance and also reporting of the event. CAAV President and Secretary also speak. This has become the place for examination prizes and the launch of the Scottish Agricultural Land Occupation Survey.

CAAV will normally deliver the spring briefing as part of the day. Normally of a technical nature, ideally this should also be used as an opportunity to for those members of the technical committees to outline the work done during the year on members behalf.

The CAAV President will normally attend SAAVA’s AGM and have a short slot to speak about the work of CAAV. The press are invited.

• Field Day.

SAAVA hold a Field Day on a farm annually in May / June.

The Field Day is a form of continued professional development for SAAVA’s membership. With its practical work, it is accorded a half day tutorial status for CAAV applicants and therefore should deliver requisite training. Experience suggests that the Field Day should be held somewhere relatively easily accessible to the majority of the membership. This by its very nature rules out parts of the South West, Borders, and the North and West of Scotland, unless a particularly interesting subject/location arises.

The Junior Vice President and Secretary of CAAV are normally invited and given a 30-40 minute slot at the Field Day to identify matters of interest to the membership.

The press are invited

• Royal Highland Agricultural Show CAAV/SAAVA Presidential team visits

On the Friday of the RHAS is usually the day on which the Secretary of CAAV and the Senior Vice President of CAAV pay an official visit to the Show with the President of SAAVA.

This visit affords the opportunity for discussions with and to reinforce relations at high level with various stakeholders including:-

o Scottish Government
o Scottish Land Commission
o SLE
o STFA
o NFUS
o SRUC.

The organisation of the visit is essentially the work of contacting the relevant person in each body to arrange a meeting, developing a timetable for the day. An appropriate person should be identified to do this.