(Newsletter) Winter 2005-2006
Gauby gets scholarship and goes to NARHA National Conference in Houston, Texas and accepts awards for Buff. Last year was the first time we were able to send members of our organization to a National Conference. It was located in Kansas City, so it was close to home and expenses to attend were at a minimum. We planned in advance and raised money to attend this conference and also volunteered to help at the conference gaining a reduced cost for the days we volunteered. This year, however, we hadn’t planned or budgeted for attending the conference. Then look what happened, our organization’s horse, Buff, won the NARHA Region 7 Horse of the Year award. He would be honored at the conference and presented with a water colored portrait done by artist B. J. Lewis. Something just had to be done and someone from our organization needed to get to the National Conference November 9th-12th and represent our organization and accept the awards. Expenses would be higher because it was in Houston, TX., not to close to home. Independence Farms board member, instructor and volunteer, Terri Gauby, of Washington, had no previous commitments for the dates of the conference, but had to be creative as to how to come up with the money to go. She found out about a scholarship that was being offered and applied for it. She wasn’t the winner, but the winner was unable to attend, medical reasons. The scholarship was then passed to the second choice. Gauby accepted and hastily made travel and room arrangement all within two weeks of the conference. Gauby has been attending conferences and meetings for a while now, networking with various others who also do therapeutic riding and are members of NARHA, so she was able to find a place to stay with others she has come to know. All she had left to do was to get there and back. She checked out various means of traveling there, time and cost. Settled on flying, which she doesn’t like to do very well. Several bad experiences have been incurred while flying. This trip wasn’t without it’s experiences either, but we won’t dwell on them. All the good things that happened at the conference totally outweighed all the negative travel experiences. She made it back home and then reported to the board on all the great ideas and information she had gained at the workshops and seminars she took in while she was there and on the banquet. Extremely emotional is how she described the banquet. It was a awesome experience to be up on the stage and accept the plague and the portrait of Buff, but it was even more awesome to hear the stories that were shared about the riders, volunteers and horses. Let’s just say there wasn’t a dry eye in the room when it as all over. Gauby says she and Independence Farms should be honored to be a part of a industry that gives so much of itself to others. It’s not about power and money; it’s about what one can do to help others!
Independence Farms now has two NARHA Representatives.
As you may have learned from previous newsletters, Michelle Woerner, our lead Certified NARHA Instructor, holds the NARHA KS State representative position, but since the National Conference in Houston, TX, Terri Gauby now holds a NARHA position also. She has become the secretary for the NARHA’s Region 7. This district is made up of the following states: Kansas, Nebraska, Missouri, Iowa and Illinois. She will have the responsibilities have recording any Region 7 meetings. These meetings are usually held in conjunction with the Region and National Conferences. Her first duties will be performed at the upcoming Region 7 Conference in Waterloo, IA, March 3-5th.
Buff, Independence Farms’ horse dies unexpectedly. Seems like with every good thing that happens to us, we have to experience a bad thing to go along with it. It is with a feeling of great loss and sorrow that we report the passing of our horse, Buff. It happened totally unexpectedly. He was not sick or ailing. He wasn’t that old, only 19. On Sept. 27th, he was reported seen eating grass out in pasture at 3:30 PM but when he was called in for feeding at 6 PM, he didn’t come. He was gone when he was found on top of the hill, beneath a tree, out in the pasture. He was buried under that tree on that hill out in the pasture. Many tears were shed over him that day, at later Sunday riding sessions and at the National Conference. Locks of hair from his mane were cut for remembrance. Maybe he wasn’t the greatest looking horse in the world, but to us he was perfect. He had a wonderful disposition. All our volunteers loved to work with him. The riders developed special relationships with him. He will be very hard to replace, but we will need to replace him. He was the perfect horse for some of wheelchair bound riders as he had the disposition to be patient and wait at the ramp while they were mounting. He was wide through the back, which made him easy for those more unbalanced riders to sit more stable on. He wasn’t too tall, making him easy to work besides and for our volunteers to keep up with. So we’re looking. If you have a horse that you think will work to replace Buff, contact us. If you’d like to donate him to us that would be wonderful, but if you don’t want to give up ownership, think about leasing him to us. Please?
Fundraising: 2006 Calendars for Sale. Buff and the other region Horses of the Year, are featured in a calendar put together by NARHA. Buff is the December horse. We have a limited amount of them for sale. They are 12.50 each. They are very beautifully done, water colored portraits of each horse painted by artist B. J. Lewis. A brief paragraph telling about each of the featured horse accompanies it.
Riding Sessions. Class number 4, began Sept. 11th and ran through Oct. 23rd. It was a class full of challenges not to mention full of riders. All riders returned but one whose school schedule interfered with riding. That left an opening for one new rider and the time schedule for the day allowed us to add another new rider. That made 6 returning riders and 2 new riders. Ages ranged from 5 to 56. We had the weather and temperatures to contend with. It was HOT, HOT, HOT! You wouldn’t expect that for September and October. The fans ran all but one session. It was the Oct.16th session that didn’t require the fans. It required jackets and gloves. Go figure? We had the death of Buff to deal with. Telling everyone was terrible. Lots of tears. We had to cancel out one of our riders, as we couldn’t safely accommodate them on any other horse. We had to bring in horses that weren’t on the scheduled. Rescheduling them and hauling them there was difficult as their owners weren’t scheduled to work or they had other commitments. After we got that worked out, one of the rescheduled horses came up lame and another went on strike, refusing to move. What good is therapeutic riding with a horse that won’t move? Guess it could have been worse, he could have blown up, kicking and bucking, but he didn’t. He won’t be back and neither will the lame horse. The upcoming months will be spent looking for good usable horses and evaluating them. We have a couple on the list so far, but we’re still looking. Do you have a horse that you think will work as a therapy horse? Are you either willing to donate him or lease him to us?
Give it some consideration, please. You’d be helping us to continue to give “Wings of Independence” to our riders. We can’t bring some of our riders back till we find a horse that we can SAFELY accommodate them on.