North Wales Region
Firstly Liz and I would like to say congratulations to all our participants and volunteers who took part at Hartpury again this year, competing at such an inspiring event. 26 people entered Countryside Challenge, Dressage, Show Jumping and Carriage Driving classes using 4 horses from the Clwyd Special Riding Centre, and thanks go to all our volunteers and to the staff at the centre for the hard work involved to make it all happen. Our vaulting team borrowed a horse from Berwickshire RDA who kindly allowed the team to compete, and win first place in their class, despite the lack of a suitable vaulting horse in the region.
On behalf of the region, we would like to express our gratitude to our Regional Secretary, Ann Mayfield, who will be retiring from post at the next Regional meeting in October. Ann has been a tremendous help to us both, and a highly efficient secretary who we shall miss greatly.
Also retiring, Joan Fairhurst (East County Chair) has also made a great contribution to the region, and has found her replacement, Barbara Himsworth to take over the role. Many thanks Ann and Joan!
We shall have more changes to the Regional roles in October, and welcome not only Barbara but also Jayne Lewis, from Wrexham Group, who will take on the role of Secretary. Jayne is an RDAC and coaches Wrexham Adults on Tuesday evenings, and is also a Wrexham Group Trustee. Barbara is on the education committee at RDA UK and helps with the Clwyd Special Riding Trust Group, both vaulting and riding sessions.
Also new to us in October, Emma Davies and Larissa Burnett will be taking on the joint role of Regional Publicity Officer.
Emma has horses of her own and works within the carriage driving industry. Emma has volunteered at RDA Groups as a Riding Coach, Carriage Driving Coach as well as a Group Vaulting Coach- with Dyffryn Ceiriog, Clwyd Special Riding Trust and Wrexham Groups. She and Larissa are looking forward to working together in their new role. Emma is pictured on the right here with Bertie, a retired 23year old RDA horse from North Wales- Emma and Bertie gained two seconds and a first at Bertie’s first show this year.
Larissa has two arab mares, and she and Moon (pictured below) enjoy competing at GB Endurance events, and were ranked 3rd overall for Novice horses for Endurance GB this year. Moon is 6 years old and has been trained by Larissa herself, and graded 1 and 2 at each event they’ve competed in this year. They were selected for the Welsh squad to compete at the GB Endurance Home International Championships in Ireland on 10th and 11th September- Larissa and Moon completed 48km on the Sunday and the Welsh Squad won the trophy, coming first in this international competition. Larissa helps with Hope Mountain and Wrexham Group’s RDA vaulting sessions on Tuesdays.
We shall shortly be updating all contact details on the Regional Website www.northwalesrda.org and look forward to working with the new members of the Regional team.
Alys Lewis-Jones
Regional Co-Chair for North Wales