Resumption of regional training activity

British Dressage (BD) is delighted to release a calendar of training dates covering June to August, which will mark the resumption of training activity across the eight regions.  All organised activity was suspended at the end of March due to the coronavirus pandemic and extended up to and including 31 May 2020.

In all regions, judge training will resume using online platforms so that judges can continue their education towards exams.  Training for a range of levels has been planned and participants can book online via their individual region’s webpages.  This includes Scotland and Wales, as well as England.

In the English regions, in person tuition will be getting underway from 1 June, on a one to one basis only initially, including flexi-training, BD Youth coaching sessions, test riding and clinics with BD accredited coaches.  Venues, coaches and pupils will all have to adhere to the government regulations on social distancing, public health and hygiene, as outlined in BD’s online tool kits.

For those unfamiliar with flexi-training, it’s a great way of accessing BDCC qualified coaches across the region and booking sessions at a mutually convenient time.  These coaches welcome riders at all levels and share the ethos of developing you and your horse, building our regional teams and creating a community of riders across the region. You can be assured that they are insured and have current safeguarding and first aid training.  We also have BD Youth training days with our qualified youth coaches, who have all undertaken specialist training to develop skills for working with young people and are DBS compliant.

Booking your training activity is simple – just head to your region’s web page and find out who is currently offering sessions and use BookWhen to secure a place. You then have three months to make contact with the coach to arrange a mutually agreeable time and date, using your unique booking reference.  During the pandemic we are advising that all payments should be made electronically in advance, rather than on the day.

The Regional Committees in Scotland and Wales are also working on a programme of face to face training activity, which will be released once the respective governments have eased their lockdown restrictions.  Further details will be posted on the respective regional web pages as soon as we are given the green light, to enable coaching sessions to get back underway at the earliest opportunity.

Ben Waterhouse, BD’s Chief Operating Officer, who manages Regional activity with our Regional Development Officers, commented; “It’s great news that our members in England can start to get out and resume some regional training activity – while we appreciate that this might be disappointing for those members in Wales and Scotland who remain in lockdown, hopefully it’s not too long before you’ll be able to join in. The RDOs and regional representatives are fully committed to providing training opportunities for all in a safe, regulated and controlled environment, although we will all need to play our part to minimise the risk of spreading the virus. I’m sure many have missed that rider/coach interaction and will be glad to get back to training, albeit on a one to one basis for now.”

Details of the training activity on offer in each region is now on each respective webpage, with links to online booking and payment facilities.