President's Report - January 2021

The last 12 months will be remembered as the weirdest in history. With club events put on hold for several months due to Covid, and then a cautious re-start to activities in June, we have been very fortunate to run the remainder of the year’s events. There were a few changes made to the original Calendar but we were still able to run most of our favourite rides.

To summarise 2020:

We ran:

  • 6 trail rides

  • 8 training days

  • 6 committee meetings, and

  • 1 Christmas lunch


Training days were:

  • Quaranup Goode Beach loop with Lisa

  • Alpacas on the farm with Lisa

  • Little Missenden with Jenne

  • Perkins Beach to Cosy Corner Café with Melanie & Eva

  • Narrikup with Glenda

  • Albany Equestrian Centre with Eva

  • Albany Horse Central with Melanie

  • Bouverie Marron Farm with Bronwyn

Trail rides were:

  • Hay River to Denmark with Nicky

  • West Cape Howe with Melanie, Melissa and Bronwyn

  • Meanwood road with Lisa and Melissa

  • Kendenup with Brenda and Linda

  • Styx River with Lise

  • Hay River to Michelle’s place with Melissa


Covid restrictions affected the following:

  • The Archery training day was cancelled

  • And so were the Shannon River and the Jaycup weekenders

  • The Gull Rock and Muttonbird rides were moved to later in the year

  • ATHRA training videos by Ken Faulkner were available for home training use

  • Bec created the April Lockdown Challenge video which was uploaded to Facebook. She had further challenges for us to use if the restrictions had continued.

  • The committee continued to meet but via the Zoom platform which was challenging at times, but did allow an extra glass of wine to be drunk in the safety of our lounge rooms.

The Crooked Creek weekender was also cancelled as an ANTs event as we were unable to get the minimum participants to run the rides. However, two club members still attended and had a lovely weekend. Glenda’s Narrikup training day was horse-less, as the weather was so rough but it was a really enjoyable event with a quiz and lunch.

All events have been well attended, with Training Days remaining very popular.

And for some quick stats:

  • Trail rides – smallest ride attendance was 5 riders, with the largest being 10. Average was 8 riders.

  • Training days – ranged from 4 to 22 attendees, with an average of 10 attending.

Our Members

ATHRA introduced generous discounts for new and existing memberships in September last year. This has seen a rise in our club numbers which is great to see.

As you know this club is made of volunteers and we are fortunate to have awesome members. It is great testament to those who give up their personal time to make the club enjoyable for others…so I thank you for all your energy and effort.

Thanks also needs to be given to non-club members, who help out in the background. I don’t think we had any of the blokes helping us out this year with float moving action, but we must also acknowledge their standby readiness. Tom Walker again provided some very valuable float advice at Jenne’s Training day, Michelle’s Stewart and Melanie’s John have been gracious in letting us invade their homes for meetings and lunches. There are many in the background, supporting their better halves, and we must thank them for that too.

Having the extra Trailbosses this year has reduced the pressure on the club. We have since lost a few for various reasons, however, we hope to rectify that by running a Trailboss Accreditation weekend this year. Denmark Equestrian Club have become affiliated with ATHRA and Manypeaks club may be ramping up their activities. Between the three local clubs, it will be worthwhile running an accreditation event, possibly here at the AEC.

With two other ATHRA clubs in our region, our members may be able to attend their activities, which include trailriding and non-trailriding events. There may be additional costs for attending these events so check the event details carefully. Likewise, we may have more visitors from the other ATHRA affiliated clubs to our events.

A positive in the Covid year is that we had no reported incidents at any of our events. Let’s keep up the good work so that we continue to enjoy our riding in as safe a manner as possible.

Eva, our webmistress, has continued to develop our website, and I think it looks pretty smart. It has lots of information about us and what we do.

This year is our 20th Anniversary, which is an amazing milestone. Later in the year, we will advertise how we will celebrate and you are all invited to get involved.

Next year goals in brief:

  • Be involved with trail development, including the Sandpatch area and in Plantagenet

  • Continue to develop our website and our digital presence

  • Have more First Aid accredited members

  • Run a Trailboss Accreditation Training weekend

  • Continue to explore new areas to ride

  • Celebrate 20 years of ANTs with something special

I’d like to thank everyone for entrusting me to the presidential role in 2020.

A big thankyou to Melanie, Melissa, Carol, Lise, Michelle and Eva, for supporting me, keeping me on track and being a great bunch of ladies.

I look forward to another great year of being on the trail with you all.

Julie Robins - 2020 President

Eva Bett