Volunteers muck out at disabled horse riding school

Members of staff from Minster Law firm donated their time to help RDA with its outdoor seating area makeover.

The project to clean up the outside area was started in April where different volunteers began to scrub down the seating area and pull out the overgrown weeds from around the picnic table.

A local construction company relaid some of the flagstone, replaced the old wobbly handrail and the roof on the outside seating area.

The funding for the project has come from a successful application to the national RDA charity.

Centre Manager of RDA, Carol Blake, said: “A couple of weeks ago, Minster Law came out to start the initial work on the outdoor seating area, they did some weeding around the picnic area, washed the benches and did some planting.

“The second group came last week and did some weeding and put some bark chip down. A tiny bit is still left to do and we’re hoping to get another team from the firm to come down and finish the job.”

Roxy Gill, a fee earner at Minster Law, said: “I had a fantastic time giving the outside seating area and around the stables a good makeover.

“The sun was shining bright, we got our gardening gloves on and really got stuck in with weeding and generally making it all a more pleasant place to spend some quiet time.

“We even had a little nudge from the absolutely beautiful horses who very much helped with eating the grass we were pulling out. What an amazing cause to support.”

Next month the riding association is set to launch its ‘Tea with a pony’ project, where people with dementia will be able to visit the stables and have a cup of tea and stroke some of the horses in a safe and controlled environment.

Carol added: “Our ‘Tea with a pony’ project will provide individuals with dementia a nice sunny spot to watch the horses, to reminisce and maybe pat the horses.”