Take a bow Helen
MADAM,
I WOULD first of all like to congratulate Leo Powell, editor of The Irish Field, on his appointment as president of the Association of Irish Riding Clubs at its Annual General Meeting held last Saturday and to wish him well during his term of office.
Equally, I would like to wish our outgoing president Helen Mangan every good wish and the very best of luck with all the activities she is still involved in.
Back in 1972, Helen was a founder member of Foxborough Riding Club, now the oldest club in the country and she remains a member today. Foxborough were then affiliated to the British Horse Society’s Riding Clubs so therefore some time later, Helen and some of her equestrian colleagues formed the Association of Irish Riding Clubs. Over dinner one evening, she and her husband Frank thought of and started the AIRC Festival which she formed into what it is today, the AIRC’s largest and most enjoyable event in our calendar year which allows every member to enter many different classes, without qualification, over the course of a weekend.
Helen has always been such a staunch supporter and encourager to me personally and to so many other members of AIRC and continues to be so today.
Helen resigned her position as president during the course of 2018 but I, like her many friends, just wanted to acknowledge the pivotal role she played in the setting up of the organisation and bringing it to what it is today.
Yours etc,
Máire Quinlan-Pluck
Foxborough Riding Club
Value of all views
MADAM,
THE announcement last week by Sport Ireland must be welcomed, however it’s also evident that there is a limited pool of resources available and the horse sport sector has to compete competitively on the field and in its submissions for additional funding.
I extract below some comments by Minister Creed on November 27th to the Joint Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine, with regard to funding for HSI.
“As I said earlier, without this level of funding, the top end of the market will continue to survive. This funding is critical to the lower end of the market in particular. The Sport Horse Alliance is a lobby group for the sport horse sector, that is, more or less the showjumping sector, although I do not want to be prescriptive about that. The top end of it might but the entire edifice of the Irish equine industry is built on a foundation of small owners, breeders and operators and if we lose sight of that, we could very quickly have a situation where the base dies out and the mobility of the industry becomes apparent in terms of relocation elsewhere. That is something we need to guard against.”
I quote these lines to give a context to my view that the current strategic plan being formulated by the board of Horse Sport Ireland may possibly run the risk of failing to get sufficient input from the broader base referred to by the Minister in his statements, through a consultation process involving standing committees, advisory councils, and a small group of individuals without mandating the associated affiliates to seek feedback on what the broader membership is seeking and what ideas they might have?
I noted the comments in The Irish Field last week (from HSI) with regard to the Strategic Plan,“our focus remains on establishing sustainable funding models for the Irish Sport Horse Industry and working with all stakeholders to ensure the full potential of the sector is realised”.
In referring to working with “all stakeholders” is it a narrow definition of the term, or is it the broader definition in the Oxford Dictionary “in which all members or participants are seen as having an interest in its success”?
Given the profile the sport horse sector is achieving, it would be disappointing if it is the narrow definition as often some of the best thoughts in strategic plans can come from those not directly involved in creating the plan but, at the same time, may challenge current thinking. Looking forward to the new strategic plan.
Yours etc,
David O’Brien
Calverstown
Co Kildare