Details of next years camp are still to be decided however if you have any ideas or suggestions please email the club.

Back last year after seeing various comments on Facebook about how members would love a WORC camp I decided to take on the brave decision of organising one. The last camp we ran was around 10-15 years ago so I definitely think it was overdue.

After many hours of looking on the internet to find a suitable venue and one which wasn’t going to cost the same as week’s holiday in the sun I decided to go with Wickstead, if it’s good enough for Paul Tapner it was good enough for us. Much to our surprise the uptake was great (9 members in total) and I even had a reserve list, it was also lovely to have 3 junior members.

I was lucky enough to secure some fabulous trainers across the weekend including Vicki Mace, Nick & Mandy Lucey and Aaron Nobbs. Each session was fantastic, very informative but simple to understand and from me being on the ground I could see improvements by the end of each lesson which was great to see as well as lots of smiley faces and happy ponies.

There were several highlights for me as the organiser and firstly would-be - Gayle Pilkington who is normally a dressage superstar but instead I watched her and horse fly over not only showjumps but also XC fences, Gayle was nervous before the session but those nerves soon disappeared. Hopefully we will see Gayle at some of our jumping competitions soon!

Secondly, newly joined junior member Laila Chok and her lovely cob Pye. Laila would definitely win the award for most enthusiastic. Laila never stopped smiling or encouraging her pony even if things didn’t go right and I am sure many of you have seen the fantastic photo of them both jumping into the water…. That smile says it all!

Finally, with anything there is always the “save of the day” and that would go to Julie Toop and Izzy. Not sure how she stayed on jumping into the water but she did, it was a heart stopping moment for the spectators!

As always, things can be improved and having never organised a camp before it was a learning curve for myself and I have taken away things which can be refined for next year, so as they say, “things can only get better”

Thank you to everyone who came along. I hope you all had fun and if you have any other suggestions please let me know. Camp will be a yearly thing so time to get arranging for next year. I am considering running a day rally around September so watch this space……

Thanks, Mel