30 Jul

Uncategorised

10th Anniversary Bash and AGM

Friday 28th July we packed out the Conference room at Grange Farm, for our 10th Anniversary Bash. A glass of fizz welcomed the 50+ members and guests to an evening of games, horse quiz, AGM and awards.

Starting with the icebreaker  Bingo,  2 short videos – one from 2012 and this year’s VIDEO –  followed by The Quiz written by Sharon and Janice.

See the 2017 video here – WARC 2017 Video

There was a dash to the chippy by Tracey & Helen to get a car load of fish, sausages, chicken and of course chips – and I mean a car load, in the boot, back seat, foot wells and on Helen’s lap.

The AGM followed with Tracey (chairman) thanking Di Dunlop and presenting her with a bunch of flowers for her support in using Grange Farm Equestrian Centre over the years, the founders Charlotte Hollis, Julia Dungworth and Dawn Ross. The previous chairs, Charlotte, Sue Proctor and Karen Dinwoodie, followed by thanks to the rest of the current committee.

Sharon Pick – Vice-chair and Junior Representative

Karen Barker – Treasurer and Trec competitions and training

Angela Lumsdon – Training mentoring, Banker and Combined Training Team manager

Janice Price – Dressage competitions and Team Manager

Kerry Dean – Cross-County Training and Team Manager

Helen Mcintosh – Secretary and SJ Team Manager

Lynette Ippolito – Safety and Welfare Officer

Ruth Demagalski – SJ Competitions

Tania Scutt – SJ Competitions and Minutes Secretary

Debbie Littlemore – Membership Secretary

Sharon Reid and Jo Lofts – Junior Representatives

Then onto the legal bits, the Treasurer’s report, from Karen. She firstly thanked Angela who does all the collecting and banking of monies. The accounts were on display for all to see but Karen explained how our accountant has sorted out an important query regarding Corporation tax, and we don’t owe anything for the time being (yippee). The bank balance is very healthy and last year we had 128 members.  Our future plans are to buy some new dressage boards and letters.

Official thanks and legal part over we went onto …

The Awards.

The mentors were asked to nominate the horse and rider who had most improved this year.

Tom Fray ‘s award went to Helen McIntosh

Cathy Lammie nominated Jo Meikle

Kate Knight – Hannah Elsey

Claire Llewelyn – Ann Hiles

Jane Ellis – Phillipa Worrall

Rachel Finch – Yvonne Ludeks

The Committee gave two special awards – firstly to some-one who embodied the club’s values – helped at events, regularly came to mentoring, rode in qualifiers, was always helpful and encouraging to other members and was a general good egg, and the 2017 winner was  – Debbie Robinson

Also special mention of one of our youngest members – Louis Devonshire who was due to be with us during the evening together with his mum Jo but was in fact recovering from his transplant operation in London – a super Bravery Award for Louis – we all wish you well.

Helpers were thoroughly thanked having clocked up an amazing 900+ hours of setting up, running and clearing away at events over the past membership year. The roll of honour (excluding committee members) was

Sara & Graham Murphy

Merry Clark

Sue Gregg

Juliette Eaton

Jo Harrison

Hannah And Abi Elsey

Jools Long

Claire Mellor

Debbie Robinson

Sandi & Maddie Taylor

Andy Blair

Cherry Anderson

Sue Scarrott

All their names were put into a hat and one lucky winner drawn out of the hat – Hannah and Abi Elsey – worthy winners of a bottle of fizz (well not Hannah!!!)

And there ended a lovely night and out into the pouring rain …

03 Jul

Uncategorised

10th Anniversary Fizz Fish and Chips, Fri 28th July

Please see invitation to our 10th anniversary bash – open to members only

RSVP by 21st July

Area 7 NAF Five Star Horse Trial Qualifier 2017 at Ely Eventing Centre

Sat 10th June  saw a very bright and sunny day at Ely.   Organised by Area 7, I was on flu vac and hat tagging duty and my desk for the day was opposite the show jumping and cross country start and out of the glaring heat and sunshine  – wicked! For those not in the know, BRC  hold a number of championships in a variety of disciplines . We are part of Area 7 which stretches from us in the north down to Three Rivers right down by the M25, over to Wisbech in the east and Rockingham in the west. Each club in the Area runs a qualifier, and we have run the Combined Training for the last few years at home.

Any member can enter a qualifier – just look out for the facebook messages and emails with details of the event and whom to contact.  The team manager can take you through what can seem scary rules and eligibility.

So back to the NAF horse trials.  We entered both juniors and seniors, and I think the girls did good coming home with a few rosies and congratulations to Linda Cowd and Claire Ludeks  who have since been invited to the Championship.

Linda Cowd and Debbie Robinson

Claire Rodgers looking good on the cross country

Debbie Robinson

Even the team manger managed to get a round in – Kerry Dean

Junior – Megan Bradley

All results can be found on the Area 7 web site

And it goes without saying a huge thank you to those that helped groom, drive, pay for the entries and pole picked in the glorious sunshine ( see it wasn’t that bad helping out) and to the team managers for sorting the paperwork, monies , helpers, getting together the teams, wardrobes to allow our members to have such a good time.

Cheers

Helen

PS if you think the ground is too hard to jump on grass, our next show jumping competition will be in the arena at Grange Farm Equestrian centre on Sat 15th July.

18 Jun

Uncategorised

June Newsletter

Well folks, we’re now our tenth year as a riding club, so a big thank you to all the past and present committee members and helpers throughout the years. We will be kind of celebrating with an AGM, Quiz, Fish’n’supper night on FRIDAY 28^th July in the evening. So save the date.

A reminder to all those that have to rejoin- get your skates on! You must be members to do qualifiers when the prelim entries go in. For those not in the know, we are part of Area 7, and send individuals and teams to various qualifiers for the Lincoln championship in September, and winter NAF championship at Keysoe, Horse trial championship at Swalecliffe and various Intermediate championships in Dressage, show jumping, Horse trials, Festival of the Hunter, Dressage To Music  and finally Combined Training which we run at Wittering. Watch out for emails with dates and details in the next few months.

We asked  – you replied

We sent a couple of short surveys on mentoring  and training , and one on events. It seems you like the mentoring system, the groups are social and supportive, you like our instructors and the price is right. So we’re not going to change anything 😊

You liked our friendly and well run events and you wanted more showjumping so … the next show jumping is Saturday 15^th July.

A question of helpers

This last year, you, our members volunteered for over 900 hours. Pretty amazing considering most of you work, have family and partners and of course, all time consuming, your own horses. So a huge gushy thank you. As a reward we offer refreshments and helpers credits. Sorry, there’s no way could we afford to pay for help.  I think we are almost unique in giving credits, which can be redeemed on mentoring and training sessions – give a little and hopefully get a lot back.  The jobs are varied and can be physically demanding – setting up show jumping courses, to taxing – scoring, or very social- stewarding. Or if you want a cosy sit down job – what about dressage writing.  Watch out for requests a couple of weeks before events, and offer to help even for an hour – that’s enough time for some-one to have a toilet break and go for a burger 😉

The other major save the date is Camp Sat 30th Sept/Sun 1st Oct. More of a training weekend full of training (surprise surprise), demos, talks and lunch !

And the perennial thank you to

Tracey Matthews as Chairman

Karen Barker as Treasurer and Trec guru

Debbie Littlemore – Membership secretary

Janice Price – Dressage competitions and team manager

Kerry Dean – Jumping and cross-country

Sharan Pick – Vice Chairperson and Junior Rep

Lynette Ippolito – Welfare officer

Ruth Demagalski – show jumping competitions

Tania Scutt – show jumping competitions , minute secretary

Jo Lofts – Committee member and chief scorer

Angela Lumsdon – mentoring training and assistant bean counter.

Sharon Reid – Committee member and good egg

Helen McIntosh – Committee member and back-up crew.

Every-one is welcome to come along and join the mad-house.

And then we have the usual reminders:

• Please tidy up arenas and car park when you come for mentoring or competitions
• Help Angela organise mentoring by letting her know whether or not you can make your  mentoring session.
• Come and join in and have fun!

Don’t forget our Facebook page and the WARC classifieds

Bye!

The Committee