Welcome to the Area 8 website!
Calling all volunteers! Please click on the badge above to register – and your own badge will be in the post!Hi there Everyone,
Hi everyone! I am your area rep, and I will endeavour to do the job to the best of my ability!I have lived in Essex all of my life and I also have owned horses all of my life, which is quite a considerable time now…! …. but it never ceases to amaze me that I learn new things each year as with innovation and research we find out more and more about our four legged friends!
I used to event and I also point to pointed a bit, and I have my B.H.S.I. I have two sons and a daughter, all in their twenties now, who all enjoyed the Pony Club; luckily for me, my daughter is still really keen and shares my passion, so if I am not at an Area 8 competition this summer I will be out eventing with Alicia!
We run all sorts of Area competitions in Area 8: as well as all the usual ones, we also have some which are unique to area 8 like the Gosling cup, the Bloom Cup, the Calvert Cup and the Pony Club Challenge. Please have a good look round this website, as well as your own Branch website.
The Pony Club offers all of us a lifelong interest, knowledge and love of horses and ponies. Training and enjoyment, challenge and achievement, fun and friendship are all equally important to us: lifelong friendships and Horsemanship are our true goals. The Pony Club offers you an excellent route for refining your horsemanship through its unique Test ladder, with Achievement Badges and Efficiency Tests going right up to The Pony Club A test, which is highly thought of all over the world.
As a member of every Branch in Area 8, you have the chance to go to Pony Club Camp, but be warned: this can become a lifelong habit! If you ask the Coaches or Branch Committee members why they volunteer to run your Branch, many of them will say it is because of their own enjoyment as members of the Pony Club. All Branches are run entirely by volunteers without whom it would be impossible to provide such a varied programme, and we are so grateful to all of them. Branches welcome every parent as a volunteer, as much for their skills outside the equestrian world as in it. There are a myriad of jobs to be done!
This map is not perfect! Area 8 includes Norfolk, Suffolk, Essex, and Cambridgeshire, East Hertfordshire and East Lincolnshire..
As a senior Branch member, you can join the Coaches at your Branch, or even use your Pony Club B test as part of your Gap Year travel plans. Even if you no longer own a horse, you continue to benefit from Pony Club Insurance, so that you can say yes to some exciting invitation to ride, or go hunting, knowing that you have the necessary insurance cover.