About Offa's Dyke Group
Offa’s Dyke is a long established group. In fact we celebrated our 20th birthday year in 2007 with a fabulous ‘Pig Roast’ social evening. The group originally started in Monmouth and took its name from ‘Offa’s Dyke’, which was built to divide England & Wales. It covers the area either side of the Dyke and also Herefordshire and parts of Gloucestershire. Anyone, in any location, can choose to become a member of Offa’s Dyke Group and non members are also welcome at all our rides.
We are a very friendly group with members of all ages and levels from beginners to advanced level. We are lucky to have quite a few riders of international experience in our group. They all started as complete beginners and are very willing to pass on their knowledge to us all.
As
well as rides, we also organise training and social events throughout
the year. (see Rides and Events page for details). Our members can use
their trophy card to collect points throughout the season towards the
group’s annual rosettes and trophies (see ‘Annual Awards’ for what you
can win). These are presented at our end of the season AGM -
social evening, which is always great fun and a lovely way to catch up
with everyone without a sweaty horse in tow!
What we do:
Rides
Each year we organise about 8-10 rides
beginning with our ‘Christmas Cracker’ ride in the New Year with minced
pies and mulled wine to finish! We go on to organise a whole range
of EGB rides, from Group Social Rides up to the three day ride at Ludlow
Racecourse, which includes Non Competitive Rides (pleasure rides),
Competitive Rides and Endurance Rides.
All of our rides and events are run on a voluntary
basis and rely on lots of helpers. This can be great fun and a
good way to make friends and pick up tips on endurance. If you can
help in any way, please let us know. To find out more about
helping out, and see what sort of the jobs you can do please see the
Getting
Started/Getting Involved page.
Training events
We have a range of training events throughout the year, including the winter months, when there aren’t many rides to go to. So far in 2009 these have included:
- schooling lessons at Huntley School of Equitation with Carole Broad FBHS;
- indoor training day with sessions on map reading, crewing in a vet gate and the Alexander Technique;
- new members training afternoon at Liz Taylor’s yard
Our plans for the rest of the year include more
schooling lessons and some evening talks over the winter. Ideas
for speakers so far include a Master Farrier, a Chartered
Physiotherapist and a vet. If you have any other suggestions and
can recommend a speaker, please let us know.
Contact
For more information, reports and photos on
training events please see the
News/Training page. Also some training notes from previous events
are available on the News/Archive of
Articles page. These include all sorts of useful information
e.g. items on getting started, crewing, vet-gate procedures and also a
ride time calculator for working out riding times to checkpoints.
If you have any useful information like this to share with the group,
please let us know. Contact
Social events
Offa’s Dyke is a very friendly group and we do enjoy getting together for a social evening. We cover a fairly large area, so try to move around and meet in different places. We’re always on the lookout for new pubs to try. For the winter meetings with guest speakers, it would be especially useful to find a good pub with a meeting room. If you can recommend a pub, or have any other suggestions for social events, please let us know. Contact
Newsletter
We also publish a newsletter 4 times a year
with information about all our rides and events as well as informative
articles and ride reports by members. Contributions for the
newsletter and website are all very gratefully received. Offa’s
Dyke members can also advertise in the newsletter free of charge.
It can be sent by post or email - free to members and associate members.
Non members can subscribe for £5 per year (subscription
form). The most recent
newsletters may be downloaded from the are available free in the
web-site .
Who can enjoy Offa’s Dyke Group?
If you join EGB as a full member and live in
our area, you will automatically be allocated to our group, but you can
ask to become a member of whichever group you like and the EGB office
will change you over. You can only be a member of one group and
collect trophy points for their annual awards.
You don’t have to be a member of EGB to enjoy our
rides. Non members are welcome to come along and do a pleasure
ride (also known as Group Social Ride or Non-Competitive Ride).
You can also take part in EGB Competitive Rides of up to 40km (25 miles)
at Novice level. You just pay an additional £5 per entry for
‘Temporary Day Membership’ to cover EGB insurance for the day.
Alternatively, you can join Offa’s Dyke Group as
an Associate Member.
This is excellent value for money with lots of benefits and is a great
way to see if Endurance is for you. If you find you really enjoy
it and decide to become a full member of Endurance GB– then you also get
discount off the joining fee!
If you are new to endurance please look in the ‘Getting
Started’ section of this website for more information.