Welcoming New Volunteers

This week we welcomed some new volunteers to the stables.  As you probably know, we always need volunteers to help us with the riding and carriage driving sessions for our guests here at Calvert Trust Exmoor.

When new volunteers first start they need to do some training with the horses and staff so that they know what they will need to be able to do to help our guests.  The volunteers will learn how to groom a horse, tack up a horse, lead a horse with a rider on and side walk with a horse. 

Some of our volunteers also learn how to help with the carriage driving.  For this they learn about how to harness up and help to put the horse to the carriage.  They also learn how to be a carriage groom which can involve holding the horse still while the driver and guests get in the carriage. They also learn about standing on the back step of the carriage, which is called back stepping, while driving is taking place.  This is a very important job as the back stepper will help to balance the carriage while it is going along.

Our new volunteers this week had a training session with Alice.  They met Brin and Bertie and learnt how to tack up and lead them.  Once they were happy leading the horse Alice got on Brin to show them how they can help a rider. 

Lots of our guests have never ridden a horse before so having a leader who is confident is very helpful for them. Side walking is another important job which our volunteers learnt about during the session.  This is helpful to support riders who may need a bit of extra help. 

By the end of the session our new volunteers had learnt lots about the horses and ponies here at Calvert Trust Exmoor. Two of them even put their names down to come and help with a centre group the very next day!  I am certainly looking forward to getting to know them a little better, I am sure they are dying to meet me.