November Newsletter 2025
Welcome to the November newsletter – where we’re apologising now as we’ll need to mention Xmas we know it seems early, but it’s definitely creeping closer! PROJECT MARIO The pic…
Welcome to the December newsletter where it was only fair that Santa took pride of place in the pic!
FESTIVE OPENING TIMES/DAYS
As always, we go onto skeleton lessons for the 2 weeks over Xmas and New Year as quite a few of our members go away and it means our staff team can have a few well-deserved extra days off.
So, from Monday 22nd December to Sunday 4th January inclusive we go onto a skeleton timetable – so there are still plenty of group and private lessons available, but they may be a slightly different times/with a different coach than normal.
The riding school is completely closed on:
24th, 25th, 26th, 31st December and the 1st and 2nd January, so there are no lessons on those days and our staff teamwork a rota to come in and care for the horses each day.
XMAS GIFTS!
Our Xmas tree will be appearing in the coffee area soon (Ali has been trying to put it up since November but the Grinch boss won’t let her!) and as per previous years, members are very welcome to leave gifts under the tree for the horses and ponies. Their particular favourites are carrots, apples, horse treats and mints! You can either wrap them and address them to a specific horse or pony and we will make sure they are delivered on Xmas Day, or you can leave them for “all” the horses and ponies, and we will put them in the communal bag of treats which go to the field on Xmas Day. Our horses and ponies are always incredibly lucky with the amount of goodies they get left under the tree and they want to say thank you in advance!
FESTIVE FUNDRAISER!
Our Bronze Leadership participants are running a festive fundraiser on Friday 12th December at 6.00p.m – 7.30p.m which we are hoping our members will support! There will be a raffle with some great prizes and some little stalls where the leadership participants will be selling some things they have made, and the main event is a hobby horse jumping competition – which is open to anyone of any age! We would imagine the hobby horse comp will be most appealing to younger folks, so we will do a range of jump heights and we have hobby horses here for anyone to borrow that needs one. If you would like to take part in the hobby horse jumping, entries are £5 (all funds raised go to the charity of the young people’s choice) and you can enter via reception – just let Ali know.
We will also be pushing raffle tickets in the lead up to the event – please do try to support this event if you can – it has been organised by seven young club members who take part in the Leadership course and they have done really well with their organising and planning, so it would be lovely if lots of our members came along to support it!
ARC HOODIES
For anyone who is hoping to get a Hoodie in time for Xmas, the last date that we can let Santa know about them is Monday 8th December – so if you are hoping to receive one for Xmas, then if you email or call Ali in reception (or nip in) she can take the details – the hoodies come in a range of sizes from teeny child to adult, and cost between £13 – £24 so are a bargain too for a good quality hoody!
JANUARY PRIVATE LESSON DIARY
Our January private lesson diary will open a little earlier in December to tie in with Ali’s time off over Xmas and New Year so for the January diary only, the bookings will open on Monday 22nd December at 10.00a.m so make sure you put that date in your diary so you remember!
GIFT VOUCHERS
A reminder that we do gift vouchers for all types of sessions that we provide at ARC, and you can purchase a voucher for a specific session, or for a monetary amount, which allows the recipient to pick what they would like to do.
A reminder that we request a simulator session first for all new riders at ARC – so if you are purchasing a voucher for off peak private lessons (which we currently don’t have a waitlist for) for a new rider, then remember that their first session with us will always be on the simulator to allow us to assess them fully.
Simulator vouchers are also available and can be gifted to non-members as the non-member price includes a one-off membership and they can be a great gift for someone that is hard to buy for as they are suitable for anyone over 4 years old and under 16 stone and can be great fun for those that don’t ride as well!
We can do gift vouchers in either hard copy posted to you or collected from reception, or we can do electronic vouchers emailed to you to be printed off or sent onto the recipient – if you’d like to get a voucher then just drop us an email or pop into reception.
PROJECT MARIO
So, as we mentioned in our previous newsletter, Project Mario was a great success and it was incredible to see what benefits the young people got from the project. We are hoping to run another two Project Mario programmes during 2026 and have already been in discussion with Befriend a Child who are delighted to refer young people onto the 2026 programmes if we can get them to go ahead. We have put in a funding application to “Awards for All” and are also going to approach Sport Aberdeen to see if they would consider supporting the project in 2026 – they chose not to support it in 2025 as they didn’t have any funds available, but hopefully when they see the data of attendance and achievement awards by the young people, they will support it next year. So, we thought we’d leave you with some testimonials we received from our members who helped by volunteering on the project as a driver for the young participants:
“I’m Mum to a pony mad daughter who has attended weekly lessons at ARC for many years. Each week the one hour on a pony is not enough, each week there is no other social engagement which can rival the weekly horse-riding lesson. Not play dates nor invites to Birthday parties. Holidays are severely frowned upon! So, when I heard that ARC were going to work with Befriend a Child to offer children who don’t get to ride a pony every week, a chance to have every Saturday morning with the ponies it absolutely made my day.”
“ARC asked Members (or Members parents) if they could help taxi the Befriend a Child children to and from ARC and this did not seem like a big ask given the planning and organisation which ARC had worked hard to put in place to make the Project run.”
“Each week I have had front seat viewing as my passenger has gone from being quite shy and nervous, answering my questions with one-word answers to a much more confident and relaxed person. Conversations which were solely about horses have evolved and now encompass friendships, school life, home life and plans for the future. This is not down to my driving skills; this is the work Liam from ARC has put in through his planned Project Mario sessions. Each session the children get the opportunity to ride the ponies, learn how to groom and take care of the ponies and then Liam has a special Team Building Challenge which usually involves a pony or two and lots of pony treats! Indeed, the Project Mario sessions have been very well thought out and prepared. Each element of the session is designed to help develop certain skills, build confidence and increase social interactions in a supportive and fun space. Children who were strangers at the start of the project are now a special social group who communicate with each other between weekly sessions. Brought together by this shared experience and love of ponies.”
“It has been an absolute pleasure to be a very small part of Project Mario. I hope ARC are able to run many more projects of this nature in future.”
“When I started riding again last year one of the reasons for choosing Aberdeen Riding Club was because of their philosophy of trying to make horse riding more accessible and Project Mario is a perfect example of this. When Sally put out a plea for members to help transport the young people to the club once a week I was more than happy to help. I was pony mad growing up and was lucky enough to spend weekends and holidays helping out at a local riding school as a teenager and benefitted so much from that experience. By volunteering for Project Mario, I can hopefully help this group of young people benefit from spending time around horses. As an added bonus I’m getting to spend an extra couple of hours a week around horses too!”
And finally, Liam’s thoughts on the project:
“I have thoroughly enjoyed being the coach for the Project Mario programme because it has been so enjoyable seeing the benefit these young people have gained from spending time at ARC and with horses. They have developed lots of new skills and it has been incredible seeing the progress they have all made each week and how they have grown in themselves. I find it very rewarding and consider myself lucky to work in a role where I can help those who may not have thought horses were accessible to them without Project Mario.”
VOTE FOR MARTIN!
We are delighted that Martin has been nominated for a coach award (alongside some other great coaches)! So, we are unashamedly asking our members to take a minute to follow the link below and vote for Martin – it’s super quick and you just put your name/email in and select Martin’s name from the drop-down list.
Martin is a brilliant coach – he is so supportive of everyone and has spent years training other coaches and inspiring the next generation of professionals entering the industry. We estimate he’s taught well in excess of 15,000 people through our centre and is always very humble, so it’s lovely he has been nominated for the award.
Voting closes this Friday (5th December) so be sure to get your vote in before then!
We hope everyone has a wonderful Xmas and all the best for 2026!
