10,000th Centre Member
Friday, March 17, 2006
Olivia Brown, aged 11 from Coventry has become the 10,000th young person to join The Pony Club’s Centre Membership scheme.
The Centre Membership Scheme, which was designed for children who do not own their own pony but would like to become involved in Pony Club activities through their local riding centre, was only fully launched in 1999.
In making the announcement Judy Edwards, Chief Executive of The Pony Club said “The scheme is a huge success and really meets the needs of the Members. There is increasingly good interaction between the Branches and Centres and we are now seeing the Centre Members compete in the mainstream competitions alongside Branch Members.
I am expecting a strong uplift in the number of Centre Members in 2006 partly due to the significant funding we have received, for development, from Sport England through the British Equestrian Federation. I think that in time this will be the biggest equestrian Membership organisation in the country and an excellent way to start young people, who do not necessarily come from an equestrian background, on the path to a lifelong love of horses and following horse sport.”
Nor is this scheme limited to the UK where there are now 381 Approved Pony Club Centres. There are Centres in Turkey, Switzerland, Tenerife, Dubai, Singapore, Indonesia and even the People’s Republic of China!
Olivia Brown is a Centre Member at Willow Farm Stables, Nr Rugby and to mark the occasion, The Pony Club presented Olivia with a few gifts including the Manual of Horsemanship (which has sold over 1,000,000 copies since it was first printed), The Pony Club calendar and a year’s subscription to H&P Magazine.
To find out more about Pony Club Centre Membership including where your nearest Centre is, visit the website at www.pcuk.org
