February Newsletter

January Showjumping

A huge thanks again to the Berman family, Robyn and Dave, the main drivers behind the competition. Several members did lots of work, eg Maxwell family both working bees, all the smokoes,stewarding both days Janet Wilkinson, Darren Weston, John Tod both working bees and stewarding. Thanks to Trudy Freeman who found us THREE new sponsors

Thanks to the members who came and stewarded and pencilled, we would be lost without you!!!

Next year we may send out a list or you may get a phone call in early January to pin members down to a time and job. This system may also work for the State Champs in July

I thought most people were very helpful in putting up the jumps after each class change, often 5 or 6 riders out there helping

Dave Berman has calculated with a GPS that doing 1 class can involve 7 km of horse energy so we may restrict horses to 3 events only per day next time on a welfare basis.

Lots of people asked me if we could run more Freshman events. I said provide us with more helpers!!!!!!

For next year and for the State Championships we need the following co-ordinators

Stable Steward - Wendy McKeen has offered to do this for showjumping and Liz Matson is doing it for ODEs

Sponsor Co-ordinator - who accepts sponsor’s names from members, gets what they want, orders and picks up rugs, makes sure photos of rugs, winners etc are sent to sponsors, makes sure advertising copy for each sponsor is broadcast, liase with Megan to allow sponsors to have a link on our web site as part of the sponsorship deal

Steward Co-ordinator - gets for each ring each day at least 3 ring stewards, 6 rail stewards, 2-3 pencillers, liaises with Robyn or Dave, gets 1-2 people for the office each day

Catering Co-ordinator - as Jo Maxwell did food/smoko person, buys smoko, water, drinks etc, sends out eskies, does up lunch vouchers, perhaps for States need to do some catering for sponsors in tent.

All members should try to help our club, how about volunteering to take one of the above positions?

Oz Shots gave $300 sponsorship and a good service. John said she seems to have a photographic memory for horses she has photographed!!. Look at her photos on the Oz shots web site www.ozshots.com.au

Also John’s photos of Ring 3 are on www.tody.com.au

Goombungee Show 27 March 2010 is a good height class day for riders, can our club volunteer some members to help on day, last year was good day, lots of classes for greener horses

Our next ODE is 12-13 June 2010. Monday is a Public holiday, so perhaps good choice, there actually wasn’t much choice as most weekends taken!!

New Shed

It is finished and we put trailer with good gear in on Sunday. Appears to be sturdy and well built. I have got several lots of keys cut for the committee.

A big thanks to Lindsay Welsh who co-ordinated the building of it.

Sue Gunn, a cross country course designer from NSW was in Qld last Friday, so Anthony Freeman and I took time before the working bee to take her around the course and ask for feedback. She was very impressed with the course. She has given us some ideas that won’t be too expensive, to up grade some areas for the CIC in October.

Results from the Chicken Run are now available.

Coming events:
6-7 March - Kooralbyn ODE, Pittsworth Show
13-14 March - Scone ODE, Oakey show
20-21 March - FTP ODE
27 March - Goombungee show

Next meeting Tuesday 9 March 2010 @ 7pm @ Jilly’s Cafe

January 2010 newsletter

Hope everyone had a great break , horses too and ready to go again.

Our Christmas Height class day and Christmas break up went really well. Thanks to Robyn, Janet, Cindy and trudy for getting things done and to Darren for organising the courses. Amazing hot weather for January, we have had 6” of rain, Hodgsonvale looks like Gippsland!!! Hope you all will get some soon as I know the Bermans and the showground have barely had 1”

Australia Day ShowJumping

The program is out as you will have seen and Dave Berman wants all entries sent direct to him. More information

Helpers

We need rail and ring stewards as well as some pencillers. Please ring Robyn Berman 46306646 or Jo Maxwell 46967436

All members are expected to help at this very labour intensive event.

It was passed at the AGM that membership requires members to do 2 working bees, working at this event can be part of the membership commitment

Working Bee to set up arenas

Friday 22nd January 4.00pm - Members who help will get a refund on their ambulance levy

Colleen Brook clinic

This clinic was great, she is a very intuitive and sensitive instructor, giving lots of invaluable advice.

What a shame we couldn’t get enough people for 2 days. She was expensive, but we have to pay airfares and the current rate for top instructors.

If members want someone special they can contact the club and we can bring it up at a meeting.

Congratulations to Darren Weston and Megan Drennan who are our joint vice presidents.

Club Shed

Our shed is being built as we speak. The foundations are being laid. Unfortunately, rain has not delayed its construction. However we managed to get a layer of sawdust spread just before a good shower last week, so our arena should have a good surface for next event.

Height Class Day

Sunday, 17 January 2010

This is our first for the year. Start time 9.00 am

Starting height 75cm

3 rounds for $5 for TDSJC members, $15 non members

Now is a good time to renew your membership, Robyn Berman, our treasurer will be there to collect fees, no membership, no ride at members rates!!!

All riders need to help as it is the first for the year and holiday mess needs cleaning up.

There is at least 20 minutes rock picking in the arena for each member

There are 18 rails and some wings that are lying on the sand arena and the dressage are. These all need to be brought into our arena.

Chicken Run

This will have the same format as last year, dressage tests on Saturday, hunter trial on Sunday.

Those who have trouble doing a job on Sunday because they are riding, can dressage pencil or score or pull down arenas on Saturday or put up dressage arenas on Friday, and be free all Sunday to jump.
The program is on nominate.

October/November Newsletter

State ODE Championships

What a fantastic event, over 220 horses and all over by 2:45pm.

There were a few accidents, no fault of the course, light rain possibly made it slippery between the water and last jump, and one horse played up in the start box, immediately after restarting the course!!!

A special thanks to Peter Lynch who did vetting on Saturday as well as Sunday.

It worked well having Wilsons First Aid as the on site triage centre, so that the ambulance could stay on the ground, the event continued and the hospital ambulance could come and pick up the patient from the triage centre - saved hours of waiting time.

Congratulations to all the co-ordinators - everything was fabulous.

Jo Williams and her canteen was great, they sold all the food and made approx $800 after feeding the hordes for free, the food she did for the judges was great.

The showjumping went well as did the stabling, office, cross country and dressage. We all had hassles with helpers not turning up Annie Johnston had only 3 helping put 6 rings up and 2 pulling down!! I noticed that Gerald Parker always seemed to be doing something at the showjumping - I don’t know how he went for helpers besides his family.

I know I ring my stewards 4 months before, 1 month before then 1 week before to confirm, even so one was 1 hour late and another couple just didn’t turn up, thank goodness I always have 1 spare!

Liz Matson did a great job with organising and labelling stables. Even so, Greg Lyons had to get the "stock whip" out to people illegally putting horses in unlabelled stables at cattle pavilion!!

It was great that Cindy Grech got the Equilibrium sponsorship as we were able to give free samples to riders and helpers. I think the xc stewards appreciated the extra effort with food , drinks and the Equilibrium.

Cindy Grech is new to Event and Club Secretary and she did a fabulous job in the office, keeping things flowing and organising all the sponsors and prizes.

I would like to thank John Tod who went in on Monday and spent 3 hours pressure hosing out the floor which was very muddy.

The Copabella Young Event Horse of the Year competition was great. Thanks to Megan Drennan who organised it all.

Megan Drennan got very positive feedback from Chris Burton - he thought the way she ran it was better than Sydney Young Event Horse!! And a better format!!!

There was a great Copabella Young Event Horse of the Year story and photo in The Chronicle, and Glen McCullough rang me last week and said he was doing a follow-up story about Emma Dougall, who won the YEH.

There are lots of nice photos on www.tody.com.au

Agile photographers were also there www.agilephotographics.com

Annual General Meeting

Our AGM was held in September, one month later than normal, my fault.

Your elected representatives are as follows:

President : Kathy Humphrey

Vice President (Shared) : Megan Drennan & Darren Weston

Secretary : Cindy Grech

Minute Secretary : Eleanor White

Treasurer : Robyn Berman

Memberships & Arena Keys : Jo Maxwell

Committee Members : Trudy Freeman, Janet Wilkinson, Darren Weston, Jo Maxwell, Megan Drennan, Wendy McKeen

The committee decided to keep membership fees the same as last year.

However, a motion was passed that all members MUST attend 2 working bees or help at 2 Official events each year or one of each. This is a pre-requisite for membership. At this stage there will not be a working bee levy such as Fig Tree Pocket, Sydney Jump Club and some Pony Clubs have. We will keep a working bee book in the storage shed.

There will be some area for negotiation, for example some members who live some distance from Toowoomba may prefer to make a cash or product donation in lieu of attending a working bee.

I will be resigning as President next August and so any members who would like to stamp their ideas and directions on our club are very welcome to consider taking over as President next year.

It was with regret that I accepted a letter of committee resignation from Gerald Parker. His work commitments means that he can no longer be on the committee or come to meetings. Gerald we will miss you!!!!!!!!

Good thing is that he can still help out at jump days.

Christmas Party Club Break Up

Sunday, 22 November 2009

9.00 start
Mystery showjump classes!!!!!!!!!!! Suitable for green horses!!
Prizes for best costumes for riders and horses !!!!!!!!!!!
Free beer for rail stewards!!!!!!!!!
Lucky horse prizes
Free BBQ lunch

All welcome - you don’t need to bring a horse, just come and socialise with other members - look at our new jumps!!

Lunch at 12.00pm

Australia Day Showjumping

Australia Day January Showjumping is getting closer.All members need to ask themselves how they can help to make this a financial and competition success.

Members need to:
Find a sponsor
Be a steward
Attend the working bee on Friday 22nd January
Help paint rails at working bee/club day/clinic on Sunday 17th January

We need to start planning soon. In the storage shed, when we were tidying up for the ODE, I found some old TDSJC minutes including a reply from Clive Berghofer accepting to officially open the 1st January competiton in January1987!!!!!!, so next year will be the 23rd one, not a bad record, we will have to have a huge one for the 25th!!!

Please contact Dave or Robyn Berman or Cindy Grech to put your name down as a steward or to get details for a letter to a prospective sponsor.

Sound system

Those of you who came to the ODE will know the frustrations we all have with our club house sound system not connecting with the RAS system supplying the stable and camping areas.The RAS is going to see if we can tap into their system which will make communications at big events much easier

I have had a meeting with Damon Phiilips, and he thinks it is feasible and will be talking to the RAS sound man.

Toowoomba ODE

Our April date for our ODE cannot now be in April, it is the week before the Royal, they shouldn’t have given us that date to begin with. I am trying to do swaps etc, however it may now be mid June as the 4th weekend in April contains Anzac Day.

Chicken Run will be 27 & 28 February 2009

Bye for now, Kathy Humphreys

August Newsletter

WORLD CUP

This event was great to watch and compete in. The way the horses go completely transforms after 1.30 m The World cup jump off was very exciting to watch, pity about the long shadows, must have made it harder, although Chris Chugg’s tight turns on Vivant looked effortless.

Our Ring went well, although a lot of work.

Huge thanks to Darren Weston who worked very long days building the courses. It took ages to convert to the 6 bar then back again to the 1.05 for Sunday. I know the kids enjoyed it but really think a speed event would be less work for the small work force. It would also be nice to have a 90 on the Saturday.

Thanks also to Darren who has welded a new jockey wheel onto our trailer.

Thanks to Gerald, Don, Janet, Robyn, Trish, Jo P, Noel and Darren who did the working bees and to Kev Walsh who judged all weekend. Thanks to the members who manned the gates, pencilled and made it possible. The ring went from 8.00 to dark each day.
Lots of great photos on www.tody.com.au

A huge thanks to Janet Wilkinson who has overseen the buying, choosing designs and acquisition of our new jumps and wings from Evan and Graeme. She even painted a lot of the rails herself at home. The new designs looked fantastic. Was a little sad to see all the dings in the new rails as we packed up on Sunday afternoon. Fortunately we can fit the new wings (just) in the shed.

You can see some new wings in the above photo and the amazing Vivant below

Mr. Innocent above

Hunter Trial

We only had 60 horses for this but great day and everyone enjoyed it. The $20 work levy worked well as there is always so much work with cross country and showjumping on the same day. Thanks to everyone who helped, especially Sandra O’Keeffe and Daphne Jackson who did cross country jumps and didn’t even have a rider at the event. Also Robyn Berman who had her first foray into showjump judging, which she did very well, just needed a bell! Thanks also to John Tod who designed a scoring system and had the scoring and results up extremely quickly.

Graeme Mcleod, our hard working member who is also an FEI vet is making a presentation to the RAS to build a proper vet area/swabbing box. This could be used at the RAS show, our ODEs and especially the FEI CIC we are planning for 2010.

Sue Gunn Cross Country Design Course

Sue Gunn is an internationally accredited cross country designer. She designs Sydney as well as other courses. She is giving a course here in October after our ODE, probably Friday 16 & Saturday 17 October 2009.It will start at 11.00 on Friday and finish about 4.00 on the Saturday.

$50 for the 2 days including lunch and smokos.
Ring Kathy Humphrey 0407 132 281 or (07) 4630 9771 or horsevet@dodo.com.au

October 2009 ODE

We now have a new stable co-ordinator, Liz Matson. Thanks for accepting
We also have a dressage ring co-ordinator, Annie Johnson, please ring her on 0417786314 if you would like to help out for the ODE but don’t want to do “stuff” on Saturday or Sunday. The rings will be put up on Friday and pulled down on Saturday afternoon

Queensland Young Event Horse

Megan Drennan is co-ordinating this important event to be part of our October ODE
It is for horses turning 6 on 1st August 2009 and younger. Chris Burton will be the judge. She has obtained sponsorship from Copabella owners of Copabella Visage the showjumping pinto Warmblood stallion. It will be a fabulous event and a window on where the future of eventing lies, what sires are “hot”, what blood lines click with what sires. Chris Burton will ride the 6 finalists with a roving mike, giving us a wonderful insight into what makes a great event horse—be there!!!!!!!!

Membership Roll

Cathy Welsh has done this job for several years. It involves keeping a list of financial members, so liaising with Robyn Berman our treasurer, to keep the list current. We thank Cathy for doing this for so long and ask a member to come forward and do it - PLEASE!!!!!!

Worker Levy for Members

We have some diverse and interesting feedback from our request in the last newsletter. We still need more members sending in ideas, positive or negative so we can make an informed decision at our AGM this year.

Some members think it is an impost on their time and think paying membership is enough. Others feel it is a responsibility to all members to do some form of help to stay as active members. Some people would prefer to donate cash and not have to work at events.
Our club is a not for profit group. In the last 2 years we have improved our cross country course by spending over $20,000 on it. We have purchased over $10,000 worth of new showjumps. We are contemplating spending $12,000 on a storage shed. We have earned the money for these investments by running events, clinics, schools, competitions with volunteer labour. We all work, and time spent doing free club work is time not spent in our garden, our house, our work. However all the hours by members has produced the ability to spend $30,000 in 2 years on facility improvements so that our grounds are a joy to ride on.

If EVERY member did 2-3 hours work at 3 events (competitions or working bees) a year with no strings attached we would get things done very quickly.

Anyway, keep sending in ideas and suggestion, so that a firm policy can be formulated
These are some suggestions

All members need to do 8 hours a year for the club. All members need to do 6 hours etc—not in return for the $20 job levy at Chicken runs or Hunter Trials etc

Members who do not want to do working bees etc can pay a $50 levy in cash or product for a competition.

Members pay a $50 fee on top of their membership which is refunded when they attend 2 working bees or do work at a competition

Anyway we NEED feed back for our AGM on 8th September

Schools

The Kevin McNab and Shane Davidson’s schools went very well and were enjoyed by all members. We will try to plan more before the October ODE

Height class Days

Sunday 23rd August
Start at 9.00 am
60cm, 80cm, 90cm, 1m, 1.1m classes
$5 per class for members - $15 for non members
Ring Gerald if you are going so he has idea of numbers 07 4696 9262
Max of 3 classes per horse

We are trying to have these the 4th Sunday of every month. However the 4th Sunday of September will be the Fox hunter Final at Toowoomba and Scone ODE, so we will have a Height class day on Sunday 13th September
Program as above

New Storage Shed

Our committee is looking at building our club a new storage shed. We are liaising with TEA and the RAS.

Working Bee - Sunday, 4 October 2009

Please put this date in your diary, it is essential all members try to attend. We will be making the course look fabulous for the ODE which will be the State Championships. Bring whippersnippers, paint brushes, rakes, we will be oiling and painting jumps, putting wood chips in front of lots of jumps and whippersnipping it within an inch of its life. The club house and shed will be cleaned and dusted. Work your horses on Saturday and come prepared to work on Sunday, starting at 9.00 am

Poisonous Plants

Did you know lots of popular garden plants can be poisonous to our horses?
Privet—especially new growth—colic, diarrhorea, inco-ordination

Avocado Tree—all parts poisonous, leaves have the highest levels of the toxin, persin, causes mastitis, colic, lung and heart problems

Black bean, White Cedar, Garlic, onions, oak, holly, wisteria, daffodils, clivia, spider lily, and hydrangeas can all be toxic, don’t grow them along your horse paddocks.

Don't forget to become a fan of TDSJC on Facebook! See link above.