Our Dog Walkers’ Guild is a “Professional Membership Organisation”.

Wikipedia defines a professional membership organisation (also known as a professional association, a professional society or professional organization) as follows: “a professional association is usually a nonprofit organisation seeking to further a particular profession, the interests of individuals engaged in that profession and the public interest.”

The Dog Walkers’ Guild fits the definition provided by Lee Harvey in Quality Research International (Analytic Quality Glossary) 2004; where he defines a professional association as “a group of people who are entrusted with maintaining control or oversight of the legitimate practice of the occupation” in this case that being a Professional Dog Walker.

It is important to recognise that as well as furthering the interests of our professional practitioners we also have a responsibility to “safeguard the public interest” (as defined by Lee Harvey in and R Ward Harvey, L. Mason, S.; Ward, R. (1995). Role of Professional Bodies in Higher Education Quality Monitoring. Birmingham: Quality in Higher Education Project). It is the act of safeguarding the public interest that gives us our legitimacy.

It is the complicated balance between these sometimes conflicting mandates that creates the challenges we must meet as a professional organisation. Enforcing standards and training and ethics within our profession …

Though professional bodies often act to protect the public by maintaining and enforcing standards of training and ethics in their profession, they often also act like a cartel or a labor union (trade union) for the members of the profession, though this description is commonly rejected by the body concerned.

What remains unsaid is that we must also take responsibility for our self preservation. We must “act to maintain our own privileged and powerful position as a controlling body.”

A professional body or professional organization is an organisation, usually non-profit, that exists to further a particular profession, to protect both the public interest and the interests of professionals. The balance between these two may be a matter of opinion. One the one hand, professional bodies act to protect the public by maintaining and enforcing standards of training and ethics in their profession. On the other hand, they may also act like a cartel or a labor union (trade union) for the members of the profession, though this description is commonly rejected by the body concerned. Membership of a professional body does not necessarily mean that a person possesses qualifications in the subject area, nor that they are legally able to practice their profession — although in some countries and professions, membership of a professional body is required for somebody to legally practice.

A professional association (also called a professional body, professional organization, or professional society) is usually a nonprofit organization seeking to further a particular profession, the interests of individuals engaged in that profession, and the public interest.
The roles of these professional associations have been variously defined: “A group of people in a learned occupation who are entrusted with maintaining control or oversight of the legitimate practice of the occupation;”… also a body acting “to safeguard the public interest;”… organizations which “represent the interest of the professional practitioners,” and so “act to maintain their own privileged and powerful position as a controlling body.”… This, in turn, places the burden of enforcing a Profession ban upon these associations as well.
Such bodies generally strive to achieve a balance between these two often conflicting mandates. Though professional bodies often act to protect the public by maintaining and enforcing standards of training and ethics in their profession, they often also act like a cartel or a labor union (trade union) for the members of the profession, though this description is commonly rejected by the body concerned.

Professional and regulatory bodies play three roles (Harvey and Mason, with Ward, 1995).

First, they are set up to safeguard the public interest. This is what gives them their legitimacy.

Second, professional bodies [but not regulatory bodies] also represent the interest of the professional practitioners and here they act as a professional association or trade union (including legitimating restrictive practices), or as a learned society contributing to continuous professional development.

Third, the professional or regulatory body represents its own self-interest: the organisations act to maintain their own privileged and powerful position as a controlling body. This is where control, legitimated by public interest becomes confounded by control based on self-interest.