CRDA NEWSLETTER Issue 1

CRDA Newsletter

Issue 1

September 2017

IN THIS ISSUE

Welcome to our first Newsletter of the year! I hope that you enjoy what we have put together and it helps makes sense of some of the changes you will be seeing at the Centre and helps make your involvement more enjoyable. Back at the beginning of the summer, a new group of trustees were elected by our members to help guide the organisation to continued success. There has been much progress and expansion over recent years, but we feel that we now need a period of consolidation. It is important to make sure that the changes have bedded in properly before we make any big decisions about the future.

Our priorities for the coming year are to ensure that

- Our riders have a positive, safe and rewarding experience

- Our instructors and volunteers have the support they need to deliver that brilliant experience

- Our staff have the resources they need to run the centre

- Everyone who supports CRDA feels part of our ‘family’ and knows what is going on

- We put the welfare of our ponies at the forefront of what we do

So not much for us to do then!

Dates for your Diary

Keep an eye out for what’s coming up in the next few weeks Page 7

Meet your new Board

A quick guide to your new trustees and photos so you can recognize them around the Centre Page 4

‘Welcome Back’ to all our volunteers, instructors, riders and supporters

by Duncan Smith, CRDA Chairman

CRDA NEWSLETTER | Issue 1 2

Between the AGM and the start of term we have been busy speaking to as many volunteers, riders, supporters and members as possible. We wanted to be clear about the changes you wanted to see. Thank you for speaking to us and the honesty of your responses. COMMUNICATION

Top of the list was communication. You want to know what is going on. We now have a noticeboard outside the kitchen which gives you details of the trustees and how to contact us, has copies of the agendas and minutes of the board meetings plus anything else we think is important for you to know. The board meetings are now open to anyone who wants to come and listen. Please do have a look and if there is something that interests you, come along and join us. This newsletter will go out 3 or 4 times a term and will cover things that have happened and up-coming events. If there is something you want to see included, drop me a note or speak to one of the trustees or staff members and we will do what we can to get it included. I hope that next year we can also produce a newspaper that can be circulated to the wider community. TRAINING

The second issue was the request for refresher training.

As a result, we asked Jules Gregory to become the lead trustee for Volunteers. Working with Heather and Debbie, Jules has reviewed the training needs of our volunteers and developed a new training programme. Training is now a compulsory requirement for your

volunteering and training records (green card). It makes sure that everyone is up to date with best practice and helps ensure the health and safety of both rider and pony.

As a result, we postponed the start of our riding term for riders until 11th September. The first week of the new term (4th - 10th September) was dedicated to volunteer training – we have rolled this out to over 130 of our volunteers and the remainder will have to complete the course during this half term.

Jules is developing a rolling training programme and future training will include sessions on Accident Procedures, Safeguarding, First Aid scenarios, Confidentiality, Tack Care, Manual Handling and Sedbury Shadow, the mechanical horse.

If there are any other areas you would like covered please let Jules or Heather know.

LET’S HAVE FUN

The third area of feedback was that you want to get to know more people in the organisation, not just those who are around on the same day that you are at the Centre. So, we are looking to give you notice of things that are going on, opportunities to have a go and we will also arrange a number of events ourselves – see the diary pages below.

One of my favourites is the Race Night that Helen Kingscott is organising for Friday 20th October, I hope you can join us, it will be a great night!

Best Wishes

Duncan Smith

Chairman

Debbie’s News from the Yard

Competitions

In July, we took nine riders to the Regionals and had a very successful day bringing back many rosettes. Four of our riders were successful in qualifying for the RDA National Championships at Hartpury.

Their results were fantastic, all of our riders coming home with placings nationally from 1st – 6th place. We also came 3rd in the Musical Ride.

We have run several dressage competitions at CRDA and will be running more this coming year to prepare our riders for 2018.

Ponies

This year our wonderful pony Magpie retired; he has been with us for many years and has truly been loved by us all. You can be sure that we have found him a wonderful home and a lovely owner.

Changes have also happened with the pony herd, Prince has been sold, Mosco and Toffee returned to their owners and Bertie has a new home.

The challenges are now to replace these wonderful ponies and we are actively looking for a small pony and a weight-carrier.

We are pleased to announce that we have bought Freddie and have Robbie on trial.

CRDA NEWSLETTER | Issue 1 3

Claire reports: We have been successful with many grant-making trust applications and just few highlights are as follows:

St James’s Place have just confirmed an additional £7,500 grant to CRDA to support the cost of riding and this is on top of the £2,500 at the start of 2017 for new tack, new arena poles, rubber matting in the stalls and other arena play equipment. We are working closely with this major local funder to be a part of CRDA future capital campaigns.

Freemason community fund has just given us funding to support the salary, equipment and pony costs for an additional 5 riders to work through their ASDAN qualifications

CHK Charities gave us £5,000 towards the costs of running our ponies

Fred and Marjorie Sainsbury Trust gave £2,500 and want to come and see us to see what else they can do to support our work!

Sunrise Rotary have paid for our riders to have new team Cotswold polo shirts and will be supporting the costs of two of our ponies this year.

Cheltenham Town Football Club have given us £500 from the charity shield towards the cost of a pony (nicknamed Robin maybe?)

Abbey Business Group funded our riders Xmas presents last year and this year have just given a donation of £1,200 for buying a pony with the view to supporting the pony’s running costs next year

Hague Print – have provided 300 windscreen sticker printed free of charge and 300 mini adverts for CRDA all over the town!

Newlands- Cheltenham Rugby Club has offered 80 of our riders a free Xmas lunch

CAN YOU INTRODUCE US TO A POSSIBLE FUNDER?

Do you know anyone who works for a local company who does fundraising for charity, gives volunteer days and who may want to be more involved? Does your employer have a Charity of the Year? Let Claire or Duncan know and we will get in touch!

Fund raising update

By Claire Jenkins, Charity Manager

Marks and Spencer Food and Home stores in Kingsditch have named us as their Charity of the year - lots of events in the planning from the team. So we will need volunteers to get involved as they have already offered us bag packing throughout December

Greyholme Dental Surgery have also named us as their charity of the year and we are meeting them this month to discuss their fundraising.

As Charity Manager, Claire is responsible for the overall administration and fundraising for the charity. She initially started with us as a Volunteer before joining as a member of staff

A lovely evening celebrating an incredible year of fundraising for Cotswold RDA by Sunrise Rotary

Charity of the Year

CRDA NEWSLETTER | Issue 1 4

Duncan Smith Chairman/Director Duncan is an experienced committee

chair and has been involved with a

number of Charities. He places great

value on volunteer support, open

communication and visibility of what the

Board is doing. He brings a broad range

of skills including finance, commercial

planning and business development.

Jerry Porter

Vice-Chairman/Director

Jerry has over 30 years’ experience in the

Civil Service and brings a wealth of

experience including managing complex

operational activities and staff management

and development. He is a keen participant

in animal assisted therapy and can

regularly be seen with his accredited

therapy dog Matt.

Jo Cockwill Trustee/Director

Jo has over 30 years’ experience of

bringing the best out of leaders, managers

and teams working in the public sector. She

is currently training as a therapeutic

counsellor.

Jo is leading on the New Stables project

working with Debbie & Di Langstone.

Judith McNeil-Wilson

Trustee/Director

Judith is one of the qualified RDA

instructors who delivers our core lesson

schedule as well as a range of other

activities and competitions. She has over

twenty years’ commercial experience and

an honours degree in law.

Judith is trustee lead on the Pony working

group.

Judy Johnstone Treasurer/Director

Judy first started with CRDA in 1965 when the group was formed. She is a retired Accountant with expertise in small business turnaround and brings a strong set of skills to the Board to ensure financial best practice

Julie Gregory Trustee/Director

Jules is a senior nurse who is currently

working as a Training & Compliance Officer

for a local care home group, providing

training and personal development for new

and existing staff members. Jules is lead

trustee for our Volunteers.

Lloyd Anthony Company Secretary/Director

As a solicitor, Lloyd’s experience spans

legal issues from employment to property

to contractual terms and conditions.

Meet your new Trustees

CRDA NEWSLETTER | Issue 1 5

Stables Appeal

Good News! At the beginning of September, we lodged the planning application for new onsite stabling. This has been a concern for all of us for a while and we are pleased that we can now progress the Project. It will make work safer for our volunteers, improve pony welfare and ensure bad weather interruptions are minimized. The project is led by Debbie Powell with Jo Cockwill as lead trustee, and Di Langstone. Our existing stalls will be replaced with a barn area containing Monarch Stables (already donated to CRDA). The stable area will include a new farrier room, tack room and a covered area making it easier to move between the stables and main arena. Currently throughout the darker winter evenings, the ponies are walked the twenty minutes to their fields with the volunteers using head torches and also the lights from a following car. This is not ideal and we often have to cancel if the weather is inclement. Other activities such as our sensory club are also dependent on onsite stables.

Pony care and stable management is an important part of the sensory experience and would be more appropriate taught under cover in a stable.

Additional 1:1 and 1:2 lessons ideally take place first thing in the morning but this is only possible if ponies are available onsite having been stabled overnight.

Debbie, Di and Jo will share detailed plans once we have planning permission from the Council. So, look out for an update in future newsletters.

Claire is also preparing a fund-raising strategy as we need to raise over £120,000 to be able to start the build. Details of the Appeal will follow later in the year. If everything goes to plan we hope to start the build before the end of 2018, so fingers crossed!

The picture below is an example of Monarch Stables enclosed in a barn area.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO CLAIRE

On September 20th, Claire celebrated a very special birthday (21 again!) so don’t forget to say Happy Birthday when you see her!

CRDA NEWSLETTER | Issue 1 6

Our Equestrian Education Manager, Heather McLain reports that she is thrilled that every Friday in the Autumn Term has a sensory afternoon booking: St Gregory The Great School 2- 3.30 and Belmont School 1 -2.30 on alternate weeks. But to make these a real success for the riders, we need more volunteers. CAN YOU HELP?

We are also holding a British Dressage competition on Saturday 23rd September. 9am to 5pm. These competitions raise over £7,000 for us and we need some volunteers to help with scoring, writing and stewarding. No experience necessary as we can train you. Helping at these events will improve your knowledge of Dressage as well as seeing some beautiful horses in action.

Call 01242 584420 or email heather@cotswoldrda.org.uk

REMINDER TO EVERYONE: It is vitally important that all visitors to the Centre sign in on arrival and AGAIN when they leave. This is part of our Health and Safety practice and applies to all instructors, volunteers, riders, supporters, staff and Trustees.

It is important because we need to respond quickly and promptly if there is the need to evacuate the Centre or if we need to verify the whereabouts of anyone.

An update from Heather

Heather is an experienced BHSI instructor and has many years of teaching experience.

Her skills and ideas have allowed us to develop many new initiatives which have made a significant difference in terms of the activities we can now offer to riders

Challenges – Are you up for it?

Thank you to Debbie, Lou and Pete (one of our amazing volunteers from Monday) for running the Cheltenham 10k challenge in one of the hottest days of the year. We are hoping with gift aid will have raised £2k for CRDA.

Fancy a challenge yourself? Speak to Debbie or Lou and do it for CRDA!

CRDA NEWSLETTER | Issue 1 7

The next Head of Day and Instructors meeting is a Newlands at 6.30pm – 25th September

Board meeting -21st September 7.00pm at Newlands

Other key dates

The Race night on 20th October Pates sports and social – see posters in arena, facebook and website

Hoist training in October dates to be confirmed.

British Dressage fundraiser 23rd September and 25th November

CRDA Xmas show 9th December

Bag packing in M and S home and food Saturdays in December tbc

26th January party at Newlands – beat January blues and the world premiere of CRDA dance display- see posters in arena, facebook and website

Junior Jumpers – help needed in the Marquee on Sunday 19th November. Jockey Club pay CRDA £8.50 per hour in lieu of wages

HOW TO CONTACT US

Cotswold Riding for the Disabled, Prestbury Park Racecourse, Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, GL50 4SH

Telephone 01242 584420 Email info@cotswoldrda.org.uk Registered Charity Number 1160676