Running a horse show is...

[Crackerz]

a thankless task!

I've been part of running a local show for a number of years now, firstly as showing coordinator, now as secretary.

The costs are through the roof, nobody wants to help but all moan when local shows fold.

So many times i want to sack it all in, but then remember that as a child & teen, i was at a local show every weekend and it shaped my summers, there aren't many at all now and if myself and mum (chairlady) give in, ours will also fold.

If any of you have local shows around, please offer your help and assistance either in arranging it or on the day itself (or both!?) I think it's so important to keep them going

 

[Rollin]

a thankless task!

I've been part of running a local show for a number of years now, firstly as showing coordinator, now as secretary.

The costs are through the roof, nobody wants to help but all moan when local shows fold.

So many times i want to sack it all in, but then remember that as a child & teen, i was at a local show every weekend and it shaped my summers, there aren't many at all now and if myself and mum (chairlady) give in, ours will also fold.

If any of you have local shows around, please offer your help and assistance either in arranging it or on the day itself (or both!?) I think it's so important to keep them going

If you want a job done ask a busy person. I am so sad to read your post.

I used to organise sponsored rides, a few faithful people did it all. We planned, measured and marked the routes, organised first aid, stewards, eats for the helpers, rosettes, prizes etc. I also produced a monthly newsletter for local riders telling them where they could ride off-road, park etc with times and distances. From our fund-raising we were able to get horse and other user friendly gates installed. When I moved from the area, the fun rides stopped.

I don't know what to say to you. It is really disheartening so much rests on the shoulders of a few people..like the song 'you don't what you have till its gone.' Could you publicise the problem in your local paper? Perhaps some volunteers would appear?

 

[Crackerz]

A couple of weeks ago, out local paper did run a story about our plight to keep going etc... The only emails we recieved to help were from 2 ice cream men wanting to trade! (Tough, we have an amazing REAL ice cream van every year who gives us good % of sales lol)

It's sad that these things are so hard to organise. It really really is! We have so many compliments about the show, how its run, the class variety etc. I really won't give in.

We have had to drop the show jumping this year because our supplier has retired and is offering a lesser range of jumps at no discount - they were hugely expensive even with the 'posh' jumps! But they have the monopoly on the market, as no other companies that do what the do remotely local.

 

[asterope]

We have had to drop the show jumping this year because our supplier has retired and is offering a lesser range of jumps at no discount - they were hugely expensive even with the 'posh' jumps! But they have the monopoly on the market, as no other companies that do what the do remotely local.

Could you perhaps see if any local riding schools would be willing to run the showjumping? Admittedly I don't know whether there'd be problems with insurance or whatever, but that's how my local show has always done it and it seems to work really well! It also means there's no buying of jumps - it's essentially just course hire, but at a different venue.

 

[swilliam]

I'm chair of a local riding club and it's always a problem getting help. We've offered extra points for helpers towards presentation night, but that didn't help. We run our showjumping through the winter at a local training yard, who put the jumps out for us. Without that, we couldn't run it. We've just found some extra help through the training yard - one of their trainee instructors is going to move wh jumps in exchange for running teams for us, which will give her extra teaching experience.
Do you have any local colleges or training yards to look for help?

 

[J&S]

I feel your pain! I am on the committee of local show which is now in it's 44th year. Two of the committee members have been there since its inception. It is a struggle each year to get helpers/stewards and, as you say, the cost of the insurance/loos/hire of jumps and P.A. system means that we would run at a loss without sponsorship. We are able to donate to local branches of charities each year still but with the costs rising, sponsorship falling and help dwindling (and the committees average age sky rocketing!!) it will be amazing if we get to 50years, which is my personal target. Hopefully there will be a team to carry on from there.
Good luck with your show, here's hoping for some nice weather this year.

 

[ester]

I used to be quite involved in riding club committee etc, every one was a bloomin nightmare! And whatever you did getting help was nigh on impossible.

There are several RC/PCs that hire their jumps out near me though frankly the dwindling numbers in favour of showing did start to make setting them up, getting a tannoy system in etc wasn't really worth it.

 

[Lanky Loll]

I think I know the show that Crackerz is involved with - this year it clashes with the local RC camp which I suspect several of the people that normally help will attend. We went to the show last year to do the gymkhana and it was lovely

 

[skint1]

Aw Crackers, I am one of your volunteers, you and committee always do a sterling job, it's one of the best organised around, despite the challenges. I wish I could help you with the show jumps, I guess it's a pretty specialised market (and they apparently know that too!)

 

[Crackerz]

No local venues have the facilities to drop off jumps to our own venue, we have looked in to that one. And there is no way i could find the manpower and lorrys to go pick anything up - it's hard enough geting the help to set up what we have!

A local livery yard has donated us the use of their jumps for the Working Hunter this year though, and is dropping them off free of charge in a way of sponsorship. And a committee member is lending us their jumps so we can keep a clear round going, which does tend to tick over all day and gain a good revenue!

But we were finding the showjumping was suffering as people seem to not want to jump on grass as much these days, favouring the venues that have jumping on sand arena's. When i jumped, it was all about picking the correct studs for the day and getting on with it. 5 years ago, we had 40+ people in each of our jumping classes, we struggled the last 2 years to get 20, even 10 in some...

 

[Crackerz]

I think I know the show that Crackerz is involved with - this year it clashes with the local RC camp which I suspect several of the people that normally help will attend. We went to the show last year to do the gymkhana and it was lovely

We had to move our date as another show moved theirs and then the other date available clashed with a PC camp. It's very difficult to get something in the diary.

Aw Crackers, I am one of your volunteers, you and committee always do a sterling job, it's one of the best organised around, despite the challenges. I wish I could help you with the show jumps, I guess it's a pretty specialised market (and they apparently know that too!)

You are indeed! And we couldn't be without people like you - so thank you!

 

[Lanky Loll]

Who moved C? We've been asked to help out at another local show that's trying to get back on it's feet - it will be interesting to see how it goes as I think they will have the same issue with jumps.

 

[ester]

No local venues have the facilities to drop off jumps to our own venue, we have looked in to that one. And there is no way i could find the manpower and lorrys to go pick anything up - it's hard enough geting the help to set up what we have!

A local livery yard has donated us the use of their jumps for the Working Hunter this year though, and is dropping them off free of charge in a way of sponsorship. And a committee member is lending us their jumps so we can keep a clear round going, which does tend to tick over all day and gain a good revenue!

But we were finding the showjumping was suffering as people seem to not want to jump on grass as much these days, favouring the venues that have jumping on sand arena's. When i jumped, it was all about picking the correct studs for the day and getting on with it. 5 years ago, we had 40+ people in each of our jumping classes, we struggled the last 2 years to get 20, even 10 in some...

Yes that was my experience with jumping at local shows, it has dwindled enormously and takes the most amount of effort and money compared to running it a show centre.

 

[Lanky Loll]

Yep - I help at the RC show, where we cheat and use a centre, the jumping numbers were ridiculously low last year. The show is late in the season but the going was good and the dressage and showing had plenty of entries.

 

[Crackerz]

Who moved C? We've been asked to help out at another local show that's trying to get back on it's feet - it will be interesting to see how it goes as I think they will have the same issue with jumps.

Somerford moved out a weekend further than normal and i think another date clashed with either Ridgeway or VWH PC Camps possibly?
I am part of an RC who hold their show at a venue too, which saw low jumping entries last year. Infact, even their showing was finished by 2:30pm! I rocked up to show my youngster round about 2pm and it was like a ghost town

 

[Lanky Loll]

How rude of Somerford they've had their date for years!

 

[Crackerz]

How rude of Somerford they've had their date for years!

Yup - which always fell on the Saturday of the same weekend as our Brinkworth show - so we moved ours to increase revenue, now we've had to move again!

 

[Dubsie]

We have had to drop the show jumping this year because our supplier has retired and is offering a lesser range of jumps at no discount - they were hugely expensive even with the 'posh' jumps! But they have the monopoly on the market, as no other companies that do what the do remotely local.

Try asking your local riding club or pony club if they'd like to organise the showjumping - they may well have jumps - in return for a share of the proceeds of that ring, it is the showjumping & the clear round that takes a lot of money at our local shows and brings the riders in

 

[Elf On A Shelf]

I can see your point re the jumping. A lot of shows are dropping it as there just isn't enough interest if it isn't on a surface.

People need to man up and go back to the good old days of grass arenas and out door jumping! Too many are too secure in the safety of a surfaced and we'll fenced arena that to go outside of that is just too scary to contemplate! I know a lot of people who won't show outwith a school.. Bunch of pansies!

 

[Haniki]

I'm on the organising committee of a one day show that has been running on more or less the same date for 47 years. We normally run British Showjumping in the main arena on grass which is quite popular. This year a large equestrian centre about 30 miles away is running BS on the same date as us. We can't change dates as our venue isn't available, so we can't run the BS as we will not get the entries.

 

[J&S]

Try asking your local riding club or pony club if they'd like to organise the showjumping - they may well have jumps - in return for a share of the proceeds of that ring, it is the showjumping & the clear round that takes a lot of money at our local shows and brings the riders in

We now borrow our local Pony Club's jumps for our show, we pay for the diesel for delivery and collection and then make a donation on their behalf. This works well for us as previously we had to borrow a tractor and trailer, load /unload/load/unload and also generally do on the spot repairs to the sets of jumps that were available. Luckily our P.C keep their light weight jumps/stands permanently on a trailer when not actually in use. Could this work for you? Our jumping classes are still reasonably well attended, we are keeping them all open to all, what ever the height, no restrictions. We may get a little pot hunting but if it keeps the entries going all well and good. We also run a Clear Round W.H before the actual classes, this is a great success and also gets us more entries to the classes themselves.

 

[Jnhuk]

Think running a show is more of a lottery nowadays as there is so much on that folks can have the pick of maybe three or four things that they could go to. Many hang off entering to see what the weather does or in case their horse/pony goes lame/not right

I have run various shows via our local RC and tbh the annual show is a lot more hard work than the others but seems to be the least well attended now. We usually have to turn away folks at dressage shows, our arena event (all phases incl dressage on grass) is usually popular, yet our SJ can sometimes only attract 3 or 4 people in the classes (that is with a good venue/arena and decent set of jumps and fillers).

You get folks moaning that you dont have an x, y or z class so the following year when you get these classes added to the schedule, the class is empty and the person who made the request doesn't enter.

Getting folks to help is a nightmare and always the same faces and the knackered committee!

Why we do it? Sometimes I wonder. It is the satisfaction of seeing those few folks who have truly enjoy their day with their horses and grinning ear for ear at the end of it.

 

[The wife]

Oh Crackerz I do feel your pain. I am the secretary of a local unaffiliated RC and it is a bleeding nightmare. I also run one of our shows and to find we had just 30 entries across 23 classes last weekend is terribly disheartening.

It is the same people always helping out. Thankfully we have 8 of these lovely people on a committee of 14 who will drop anything to help out but we have one who is a blooming nightmare and never helps but always causes trouble and then you get the members who feel you owe them this, who text and send Facebook messages to my personal FB account at 12am, wanting a reply immediately, then get all arsey when you point out it is a personal account and I was asleep.

I have tried to quit twice but the chair has made a pact with me that if I go, they go too and to be honest without our current chair, the club would not exist and so I feel guilty.

It is a thankless task. These days as a secretary I feel constantly bogged down with red tape and paper work. Last month it was Risk Assessment - I have never done these before and never want to again. This month it will be ensuring that procedures are in place. Month before last it was filing incident reports that had been backlogged. I give up about 20 hours a month to the RC and can't actually remember the last time someone said thank you to me, yet the one above mentioned trouble maker moans because she had to buy an ink cartridge.

Anyhow, sorry, didn't mean to steal your post on my selfish rant but just wanted you to know that there are 100's of RC secretaries across the country who know exactly how you feel. You are not alone in this.

x

 

[Crackerz]

Rant away! Sometimes we have to


Our local PC & RC's don't own jumps, they hire venues with jumps in them (albeit plastic ones - which i hate! I like good proper wooden jumps )

I'm not that bothered about losing the show jumping for this year, maybe next too. Our dressage and showing classes are so well supported!
We are running our WHP classes in a training stakes style this year, to encourage more entries and hopefully people enter more than one class. It might encourage a little pot hunting but hey, a bit of healthy competition never hurt anyone

 

[ester]

I am quite amused that the title reads running a horse show is....
crakerz

I think it sums it up