With no indoor facilities our group does not ride during the winter months. We finished our 2017 sessions on a high note with a very successful Big Ride and a celebration party to mark the 25 anniversary of the Group. Plans are now well in hand for 2018.
We are organising a Training Day at Knockdarroch on 16 April, and start riding on 23 April. We are finalising riders from three schools and the ponies which are very kindly lent to us. We have two new volunteers (so a total of 14) and hopefully one of them is applying to train as a coach. It would be wonderful to find another Trainee so that they could go forward together.
We are also becoming a SCIO on 2 April, which is quite a triumph!
We lost our week at the Aberfeldy Thrift Shop this year which accounted for more than two thirds of our income, and so we are organising alternative fund-raising, such as a table-top sale, packing bags at the Pitlochry Co-op and having a raffle at Aberfeldy Show and Blair Horse Trials (by kind permission of W & C RDA) and are hopeful that these efforts will make up for the loss of the Thrift Shop. They will certainly raise our profile across our catchment area. We have also applied for funding for our Emergency First Aid at Work Course on March 12. We have qualified for Round 2 on 17 March when we will have to fight our corner and get enough votes – more publicity!
We are a happy band, but we are a small group and the endless paperwork is burdensome! We would like to find someone who could help with this.
If you would like to get involved with any aspect of Breadalbane RDA then please contact: Jennifer Valentine: valentinejennifer95@gmail.com