What a busy year the club has had. My thanks to the organisers, helpers, stewards, caterers and all involved with our events to ensure that they happened and ran smoothly.
Our final hurrah for 2023 is the AGM and Christmas Meal at 1pm on 3 December 2023 at a different venue, relatively close to the A21 corridor, The Star, Maidstone Road, Matfield, TN12 7JR. Cost for 2 courses £22.00 / 3 courses £27.50 per person including the 10% service charge but not any drinks. A deposit of £10.00 per person is required in advance.
The AGM will run before the meal. Your pack accompanies this newsletter, and it would be great if the committee could see some new faces joining the team. Being a WHC committee member is not onerous, but we would all appreciate the support to find venues, gather ideas for interesting talks/visits etc or for ground support at the events. Can previous trophy winners, please return the trophies at or before the AGM to Alison Drew or me?
Looking forward to 2024. It is hoped that the club will run at least 1 event per month from Spring to Autumn offering training (course building, obstacle design, how to drive the obstacles/cones better, backstepper’s role), World Cups, Have A Go opportunities and One Day Event(s). Some winter training is to be organised using local indoor arenas. Contact me for details.
Looking back over the year, the Club ran a Course Builders’ Course in March, hosted at talk by Toni Gallop on Taking the Stuffiness out of Driving, also in March, training in obstacles and cones at Bedgebury in May and June, a number of training evenings at Bethersden and Old Hay offering dressage, cones and an obstacle for practice, two One Day Events and a World Cup. Well done to our winners in 2023:
Bethersden ODE 30 July 2023
Novice Pony Ali Milton
Pre Novice Pony Ali Bones (short course)
Margaret Lang (long course)
Pre Novice Horse Wendy Carpenter
Gateway Cynthia Foulger
Old Hay ODE 19 August 2023 (Joint Event with BCDC)
Novice Abbie Fuller (long course)
Novice Ali Bones (short course)
Open Linda Hamblen (long course)
Open Marilyn Page (short course)
VSE Christine Grist
Gateway Rudi Krikorian
Multiples Donna Simmons
World Cup 07 October 2023 Abbie Fuller
I wish everyone a great Christmas and New Year. Let’s continue to build on the Club’s successes for this year and make WHC thrive further in 2024. Malcolm Brown, National & International Course Builder based at East Anglia Carriage Driving Group, has agreed to return to run another course builders’ course next year and it is hoped that some turnouts can attend this to demonstrate that not all routes suit can be driven in the same way.
Jane Lamb, Chairman