Charity Dressage Competition

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Bunnymare

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Over the last few weeks I've been thinking about organizing a charity dressage or combined training competition for summer 2016 in aid of Age UK / Age Concern. I've never done anything like this before so looking for advice on where to begin. I understand that there's the venue, 3rd party insurance, St John ambulance and a team of helpers to consider but any experiences would be helpful. Thanks
 
You need someone to take phone calls to tell people when their time is for dressage. Whenever I've done it there has been instruction on the entry form to phone between eg 5 to 8pm the day before to get your allocated time.

Usually at a small show there is tea/coffee and cake for sale too on a stall where the entries declare themselves, so you need someone to run that and people to make the cakes before the day.

One person to be in the collecting area to call out for the next competitor.

Somewhere for people to warm up their horses and park their boxes.

A board to write the scores on for each competitor and someone to do it, then work out the placings and put the rosettes on the judges comment sheets at the end.

You need a judge, obviously and a writer for them. If the judge and writer can't sit in a car at 'C' and toot the horn they'll need chairs and tables and a bell.

I don't know if you have to have an arrangement with British Dressage to use their dressage tests or not, so you could start by looking into that. I know some of the online dressage competitions where you submit a video make up their own dressage tests because they don't run them under British Dressage rules.

Once you've costed everything out you can decide how much your entry fees need to be to make a profit.

The venue doesn't have to be a yard, it could be a flat field. The test arena needs to be marked out with white boards and the letters whether it's on grass or inside a larger sand arena, so you'll need the boards, letters and something to measure with.

I can't think of anything else at the moment. I've never organized a show, this is just what I can think of from a competitors viewpoint.
 
Lovely idea. Think of ways to make more money on the day, as it's for charity - home baking, as above, and have a caller available at a pound a time (publicise this, some people won't enter if they don't have a caller, so it can boost entries).
 
All of the above are good suggestions. You'll also need score collectors and scorers, it's better if you have two or more scorers so sheets can be double checked and the folk doing the scoring don't have to collect them too, the results will get out much faster!

A results board somewhere prominent is a good idea too, and a bod to write up the scores who won't mind folk peering over their shoulders while they do it.

If you can get hold of power, a laptop and printer will also speed up the scoring process.
 
If you're going to be doing it in a field, it's a good precaution in the current weather to have a tractor available to tow stuck vehicles out of the mud.
 
Think people have covered most things now. You could email people their times though my current yard tends to do that as well as put them up on Facebook.

Good luck with it though sounds like a great idea.
 
Our local comp yard will allow itself to be hired out for such things. That way you have a perfect venue, toilets, risk assessments, car parking, and they will often put you in touch with their normal judges, first aid etc. I believe the organisers are also covered by the venue's third party insurance.

You may make less as the venue will charge per hour, obviously, but it is much easier, and with our local venue you can still make money for charity.
 
hairycob said:
If you struggle to find a suitable venue you could do a "dressage anywhere" where people submit videos of them doing the test for judging.
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One venue near us did a dressage anywhere day. They submitted all tests to the official dressage anywhere site but they allowed people to use the arena and had someone to film each test. They then submitted all the tests. May be a good idea for a low maintenance charity raiser? Then you just need the venue and minimal helpers. Everyone would have to pay their normal entry fee then you could add a extra charge for filming which would be the money that goes to charity. I like to do dressage anywhere but always struggle to find someone to film me!
 
Thanks for all your suggestions, I'm on a yard with excellent facilities so I'm going to ask the yard owner if I can hire the school (for warm up) and jumping paddock (dressage arena) for the day. I'm also going to contact a couple of local tack/ feed shops for prizes (hopefully free) even if it's just a gift voucher or a bag of feed. I also know someone who teaches classical dressage, so maybe I'll ask her to judge. Does anyone know where to get the judging sheets from? A Facebook page is a fab suggestion. If anyone is in the South Lincolnshire area and would like to get involved please PM me. Thanks
 
Create a facebook event for it, then you can post the times there, rather than having people call for them.
Our Riding Club posts them on the website - much better than having people ring all night (and the next night, and the one after that, because they forgot to on the 'correct night!).

Also, look on the BD webiste. Judges are listed there, so you can get a couple. One for the morning and one of the afternoon.
 
Have you thought of getting a well established venue to put on an extra class or sub divide the classes so they get the main entry fee and you get the extra top up and give out extra rosettes for the charity bit, or ask a local show to give you a dressage ring that you run and they get a % of the entry. That would save you a lot of the set up costs and first aid etc should be already in place. They get extra revenue and perhaps new customers at no extra cost to them.
 
honetpot said:
Have you thought of getting a well established venue to put on an extra class or sub divide the classes so they get the main entry fee and you get the extra top up and give out extra rosettes for the charity bit, or ask a local show to give you a dressage ring that you run and they get a % of the entry. That would save you a lot of the set up costs and first aid etc should be already in place. They get extra revenue and perhaps new customers at no extra cost to them.
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Fab suggestion, just got in touch with my local riding club but have also have had interest from a local equestrian centre.
 
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