May / June Newsletter

Hi Everyone! Seth here! Sally said I could write the newsletter this month as I am a good example of what us horses and ponies have been doing during lock down. As you can imagine, we have a lot of information for our members regarding the situation with Coronavirus, so this newsletter will pretty much be all that!

BUSY LOCK DOWN

So, we went into “lockdown” on the 23^rd March following government guidelines, which triggered the biggest ever change to our working practices at ARC. We had been discussing our plans for lockdown with our staff for the week leading up to the announcement and had already planned who would be furloughed. So that week, Martin, Rhona, Liam and Ellis were all furloughed and all work for our casual staff (late night yards/weekend reception cover) was stopped. Sally, Laura and Ali remained working and we have all been trying to keep in touch regularly through staff video calls and Whatsapp chat. We would like to say a big thanks at this point to both groups of staff – the staff who agreed to go on furlough are as vital a part of the operation as those who stayed at work as the furloughed staff allowed ARC to control costs at a vital time for cash flow so a huge thanks as always to our amazing staff.

COVID POLICY

We presented a “live” Facebook video detailing our Covid policy on our closed members Facebook page 2 weeks ago, then shared it to our public page last week – it is still available both on the public page and the closed page for anyone who wants to watch it. We know not everyone is on Facebook, but the presentation covered our policy which has 8 stages. Stage 1 was full lock down through to Stage 8 which is all riding groups able to come back to ARC. We are currently about to start Stage 3 – we have been trialling our new protocols with livery private lessons for the last 14 days and are now hopefully ready to start riding school private lessons (subject to Scottish Government advice) on Monday 1^st June. We will therefore open private lesson bookings on Sunday 31^st May at 10.00a.m for 1^st – 14^th June inclusive. The private lesson will look very different from normal as we will have no group lessons on so will have more evening private lesson availability, plus more weekend availability. Bookings for private lessons will initially just be with Sally or Laura as Martin will be on paternity leave. Private lesson prices will be as normal, and payment must be made by card over the phone on booking.

As we are expecting high demand at 10.00a.m, we are offering a second number which you can use to call if the landline is busy. Therefore, please try 01224 733111 first and then if you are unable to get through on that line, call 07530450610. Please be aware that the mobile number is a staff mobile number and will only be available this once. It should not be used for future bookings/queries/text messages as our staff cannot answer their mobiles whilst coaching and we don’t tend to answer numbers which are not in our contacts.