Hoofprint Gaddesden Place RDA Newsletter Spring 2017 Enquiries Tel: 01442 246924
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Hoofprint Gaddesden Place RDA Newsletter Spring 2017 www.gaddesdenplacerda.org.uk Enquiries Tel: 01442 246924 Published by Gaddesden Place RDA Centre - Briden's Camp, Hemel Hempstead, HP2 6EX A Private Limited Company Registered in England and Wales No: 7512961 Registered Charity No: 1140330 All Change at Gaddesden Place RDA! We are delighted to welcome David Sapte as our new Treasurer. David comes with a wealth of knowledge of treasurer roles as well as fundraising and grant applications. Rob Jennings will be gradually handing over the reins to David and will be staying on as a trustee for some months to ensure all runs smoothly. We are very grateful for Rob's many years of careful stewardship of our finances. He has been a hard working colleague and a good friend to all of us. Spring has sprung and there are more changes to come as we begin our biggest ever renovation project. Thanks to St Mary’s Church, Redbourn, who nominated us as their charity for 2016 we have been able to replace our ailing quad bike with a more versatile maintenance vehicle. The £16,000 they raised has purchased not only Mary the Mule but also a much needed new shed to house her! A Mule is halfway between a quad bike and a tractor and was recommended to handle the major changes we had planned for our Indoor School. Thanks to the generosity of Consort Medical, our planned improvements are now full steam ahead! As soon as sessions finished for the Easter break, volunteers cleared the school of equipment and work began to remove the old irrigation system including the water tank and the two foot thick concrete base it sat on! Then the rusty roof struts were rubbed down and painted prior to the old riding surface being removed and a new modern dust free surface being laid. This new surface will need no irrigation and will improve the working environment for our riders, vaulters, volunteers and ponies. Teams Teams of ofvolunteers volunteers will will be be working working with with staff staff over over Easter Easter to toensure ensure we we are are all all up up and and runningrunning to toopen open again again on on Tuesday Tuesday April April 25 25th . thAll. All very very exciting exciting times! times! (Coming(Coming next next issue issue - Before- Before and and After After photos!) photos!) The Gaddesden Vaulting team have been busy. On 7 th January, Louise, Karen and Christina visited the Contessa Vaulting Club in Ware on a fact finding mission. It was firmly suggested they participate and they soon found themselves warming up and performing on the barrels and even cantering on the horse without holding on! They were working alongside the much younger and more supple junior vaulting team but they brought back plenty of new ideas for our own sessions. Then Karen and Louise attended a RDA Vaulting Training Day and Louise was a delegate at BEV Conference in Cambridge. Prior to that we had taken three teenage gymnast volunteers, Maya, Lucy and Charlotte to Cambridge Vaulting Club to gain more experience in Vaulting moves. You can see them in the photos dressed all in black on the chesnut horse. Coaching them are Jade Rouchy and Lizzie Bennet who are both on RDA National Vaulting Committee. They are more used to our 14.1hh cob rather than a 17hh vaulting horse but all of them enjoyed the experience and picked up some skills which they could use when working with our younger vaulters. On Saturday 1 st April Chris, Karen and Christina attended Cambridge Vaulting Club competition to gather more hints and tips of what constitutes a good routine. Our favourite from the day was Douglas the Highland pony seen here with his team. We were delighted to receive a small grant from the Ethel Bayes fund which is administered by RDA National Office and is to be used in the East Region. This has enabled us to purchase more vaulting equipment and will help us to expand our team. If you are interested in having a go at Vaulting please ask Louise if you can come for a trial session. It is great fun, builds strength, suppleness and coordination, involves close contact with the horse and builds trust and confidence through teamwork. And we do it all to music! DATES FOR YOUR DIARY Term Dates Tuesday 25 th April to Summer Term th Saturday 15 July Tuesday 27 th May Half term to Sunday 2nd June Inclusive Saturday 9 th September Autumn Term th to Saturday 9 December th Sunday 20 October Half Term to Monday 30 th October Inclusive Other Dates for your Diary! Sat 29 th April Barn Dance Sun 30 th April BHS Park n Ride on Gaddesden Estate th Wed 24 May In house Volunteer Training Day Sun 28 th May RDA East Region Competition at College of West Anglia, Landbeach Road, Milton, Cambridge CB24 6DB Sat 10 th June Riverside Shopping Centre Event, Hemel Hempstead Sun 11th June Caddington Show Sun 25 th June BHS Sponsored Ride on Gaddesden Estate Fri 14 th – Sun 16 th July RDA National Championships Sun 30 th July BHS Park n Ride on Gaddesden Estate Sun 27 th Aug BHS Park n Ride on Gaddesden Estate Sun 24 th Sept BHS Sponsored Ride on Gaddesden Estate Sun 1 st Oct Sponsored Dog Walk on Ashridge Estate Training Day Delegates enjoying a picnic Photo caption in the Spring Sunshine at competition Gaddesden Place RD A This snap was taken of Margaret and Christina demonstrating the therapeutic use of the “Peanuts” prior to riding! We thought this could be our photo caption competition for this issue. Captions to [email protected] Winners to be announced in next issue. Eas t Region Training Day On Monday 27th March Gaddesden Place RDA hosted the Herts Regional Training Day for 74 delegates from groups all over the county. The Theme was “Promoting the Independence of our Riders”. We would like to thank two of our young riders, Felicity and Stanley for kindly coming to demonstrate how they have been working on riding a Dressage test in their normal group session. There were also demonstrations of the Three stages of leading for Showjumping, discussions on how to work as a team in group sessions and the use of special equipment to assist independence. Feedback Thank you to James and the team at was all very positive with many complements about Flat Frog Films for our new film our facilities. This was particularly gratifying for the featuring our amazing riders, cleaning squad of volunteers who had toiled over volunteers, staff and of course our several days to make everything spic and span! ponies! To view the film see our Thank you! website www.gaddesdenplacerda.org.uk Regional Competition Sunday 28 th May 2017 ….. at College of West Anglia, Landbeach Road, Milton Cambridge CB24 6DB. Volunteers are needed to set up on Saturday and help with the competition on Sunday. RDA groups from Norfolk, Suffolk, Bedfordshire, Essex, Hertfordshire and Cambridge will be there competing in Dressage qualifiers for the RDA National Championships, the Introductory East Region classes, the Countryside Challenge as well as Tack and Turnout. If you would like to be part of this exciting day out please call Gay Redman – Chairman of RDA East Region on 01223 290807 to offer your assistance. Spectators are also very welcome! Trevor’s 8oth Birthday! Double celebration for stalwart volunteer - Trevor Mills. There was a week of celebrations at the yard in February as Trevor celebrated his 80th birthday and also 25 years of volunteering at RDA. TrevorTrevor took took redundancy redundancy and and early early retirement retirement in inlate late 1991 1991 after after a careera career in in banking.banking. He He wanted wanted to tofind find something something constructive constructive to tfillo fill his his time time and and decided to try volunteering. decided to try volunteering. After a visit to the volunteer centre which was then located in Hemel Old Town he started volunteering with Meals on Wheels which he continued until the service was taken over by the county. Luckily for Gaddesden Place Trevor went back to the volunteer centre and was recommended RDA. He had no knowledge of horses or disabilities but felt it would be a challenge. Trevor started volunteering one session per week which quickly became two....and most of the week! He became very keen on carriage driving and got involved stewarding at competitions. Trina Hall who ran Gaddesden Place back then taught Trevor the basics of driving and he was soon hooked – he bought his first pony and carriage and qualified to accompany disabled drivers under RDA conditions. By now Trevor was spending considerable time at the stables and involved more and more with the organisation and running of the charity.. He was persuaded to join the Committee and has undertaken the important roles of treasurer, chairman, general handyman and the reprise role of Father Christmas over the years. Trevor says " I have seen Gaddesden Place change from a branch of national RDA to a separate Charity and more recently to become a limited company. I still enjoy the friendly and welcoming atmosphere at Gaddesden Place and seeing the progress of riders". Trevor has also just celebrated his 80th Birthday and is still coming up to help at the centre 3 or 4 times a week. We would like to take this opportunity to thank Trevor for his unstinting dedication to RDA over the last 25 years and for all that he continues to do.