The sun has arrived at last making everyone a little bit happier – our job is certainly different in the nice weather! Instead of putting hay to the fields in our winter clothes and battling the elements to get the horses in for lessons, we spend the time putting sun cream on their noses and making the arenas are watered enough!
QUESTIONNAIRE
Thank you so much to everyone who has already completed our internal members questionnaire – its hugely appreciated! As detailed on our Facebook post, there is a £100 voucher for ARC prize draw once we close the survey so worth taking the time to complete it! You can also respond anonymously if you like and not be entered into the prize draw – whatever works for you works for us! We’ve had some great responses already and are already starting to implement them – one request was for some “background” stories on the horses and ponies, so we start that in this newsletter for you!
We will also be feeding back the responses to the survey in an easy-to-read report through our social media pages and newsletter once the survey has closed. There is still plenty of time for our members to complete it at:
MEMBERSHIP
Again, a big thank you to everyone who completed their membership payments in time and got the forms back to us. Members who were full members in 2020/21 were eligible for a good discount to their fees if they were paid in May, so 1st June now sees the fees return to the standard amount – £130 for single members and £240 for family members (up to 2 adults and 3 children). If you have not completed your membership yet, please contact Ali to get forms and payment sorted as it is now overdue.
SUMMER STABLE MANAGEMENT
Our Summer stable management courses are now all completely full – including 12 extra spaces we created by doubling up on two of the weeks – they seem more popular than ever this year, but that is likely because less of our members are away on holiday and some activities haven’t started up again post Covid. We will also be looking to put on another weekly stable management session for juniors at an after-school time, which is a regular session they can book into – we are just awaiting the books/equipment for the new BHS “Pony Stars” programme as we think that it will be really complimentary to the stable management session Laura already runs on a Monday (4.30p.m) and a new start up stable management session. We will keep everyone updated once we have the final info from the BHS and will then be able to take bookings for them.
ASSESSMENTS
We are going to be running the annual assessments in September this year – normally we do them in June (didn’t last year due to Covid) but we thought it would be best to give everyone a few more months riding in their groups as our adults in particular missed quite a few months’ worth of riding with various lock downs. Do please remember – the assessments are not a test! They are designed to give you positive feedback on your riding which you can learn from and work on in future. The assessments are primarily for us to ensure that everyone is in the correct standard of group lesson for them and that all our lessons are following the correct syllabus, so relax and enjoy it – your lesson will run completely as normal on the assessment week – the only difference is that one of our Senior Coaches will be taking notes at the side or typing. You then get to collect your assessment feedback from reception the next time you are in.