Area Reps (all committee members)
Bedfordshire:
Bedfordshire – Tracey Robinson. 07594 657760 doofydan6@gmail.com
Buckinghamshire:
Clare Bysouth – 01442 825879 clarefrances33@gmail.com
Cambridgeshire:
Liz Wright – 01354 741538 ewright757@btinternet.com
Joss Goodchild – jossbmg@icloud.com
Essex:
(West) Carole Travell 07889 162715 caroletravell@btinternet.com
(East) Jude Pearce, 07814 738408 jude303@btinternet.com
Hertfordshire:
Maggie Taylor – 07860 876154 maggie.taylor3@hotmail.co.uk
Lincolnshire/Nottinghamshire:
Chris Voigt – 01406 540874 silvertouch@btinternet.com
Northamptonshire:
Vacant
Suffolk/Norfolk:
Annette Staveley – 01284 830240 astaveley1@hotmail.com
Here is the autumn/winter newsletter: EarEar 202311
Eastern Region Report
Milton Training Day. Carole Travell
On Sunday 22nd Oct, the DBS Eastern Region held a training morning at West Anglia College indoor school, at Milton near Cambridge. The event was open to both DBS members and non-members, with or without their own donkeys plus our ‘ever reliable’ demo-donks Mandarin and Tintin, owned by DBS member Carole Travell. Members Tom and Debs McKay brought 2 of their donkeys to practice long-reining and to have a go at agility.
We had asked attendees what sort of thing they would like us to cover and, as a result, we had sessions on general care, foot care/handling, body condition scoring, harness fitting and long-reining intro, inhand showing, Travelling Your Donkey and also an introduction to agility demonstrating how to use easily procured items – and how the activity could benefit your donkey relationship and training in a wide variety of fields including ‘just’ going for a walk.
Hot drinks and an amazing array of refreshments were managed by Joss Goodchild, with trainers being Carole Travell, Liz Wright and Elaine Lewis.
We had a fun raffle with a great variety of prizes (Elaine Lewis’ cake and Tom & Debs McKay’s veg box being some of the stars!).
The morning was a great success, very social with lots of questions asked and answered. We will be holding more in the future. If you can find a (covered) venue, somewhere in the Eastern Region where you think such a day would be welcomed please just get in touch. We don’t have local knowledge of venues but if you can help with that, we’ll do our best to arrange the rest!
On 7 October the East Anglian Regional Donkey Show was held at Skylark Garden Centre, Wimblington which is between Huntingdon and Kings Lynn and has a really lovely café.
The weather was kind to us and we had a really good entry of standard and mini donkeys. Although this is Championship Show, there are classes especially for those new to showing plus four fun classes for everyone to enjoy, ranging from Donkey the Judge would like to take home with them and Best Ears! Our judge for all the classes was Mrs Lewis, and she had a lot of decisions to make throughout the day including the driving.
What I as organiser took from this day was how much fun it was and what a great time we had. The help and support was wonderful. Thanks to Carole Travell, Tom Bysouth, Lindsay Coker and Mick Knight for their support and for the competitors for being so friendly and enthusiastic. Huge thanks to Skylark Garden Centre who are so kind in allowing us to use this lovely venue which is so easy with its parking, hardstanding and sheltered showground and so much space plus toilets and café on site. Mrs Lewis and her continual good humour made judging look so pleasurable too.
The overall Champion came from the Youngstock In Hand Championship and Reserve from the geldings and stallions was Jade Weaver with Perehill Poetry in Motion; Reserve was Wendy Sawyer, handler Yasmin Sawyer with Justia Huggermugger
The Driving Champion was Daniel Street with Sage.
Fun Class Champion was Luna Bunker with Wendy Sawyer’s Justia Fibbertegibbit
Next year’s Show will be held on 5 October ‘24
Gransden Show. Carole Travell. Photos by Linda Swain On Saturday 30th September the Eastern Region of the DBS made our usual appearance at Gransden Show, near Sandy, Beds. The show kindly put up 2 pens for us and Rosemary, with her 2 minis and Carole, with 2 standard mares, attended together with willing assistants and spent the entire day talking to the public, answering questions on donkeys and donkey welfare as well as – of course – promoting the DBS. At 12:30 pm we were joined by other members and their donkeys and gave a 30 min parade with commentary. Annette and helpers, Marc and Kate, Tom and Debs and Tom Bysouth helped handle a ‘first timer’ donkey. As ever, the donkeys were well behaved and very popular. For some of the donkeys this was their first parade and they were understandably a bit wary but with calm and reassuring handling, they made it around the ring and soon settled. The show was a great success, lots of advice given, lots of people going away with far more knowledge than when they arrived, some money raised for our local funds and new people introduced to the DBS (and who came along to our training day a month later).
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