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EQUESTRIAN VICTORIA
NEWSLETTER
APRIL 2020

Live Your Equestrian Dream

📷 2020 BARASTOC HORSE OF THE YEAR - HOLLANDS BEND ROYAL CONSORT
RIDDEN BY SYENNA VASILOPOULOS - WINNERS LARGE SHOW HUNTER HACK.
Photo: Little More Grace Photographics

A WORD FROM OUR CEO

To all of our Members, Clubs, Volunteers, Officials and Supporters, we want all equestrian people, everywhere around Victoria, to know our hearts go out to them with the impact the current health pandemic has had in preventing them from fully participating in their equestrian sport this year. COVID-19 has disrupted all our lives and the priority of the Equestrian Victoria (EV) Board has been to protect the health and safety of our equestrian community.

Victoria’s sport and recreation organisations, including EV, have an important part to play in slowing the spread of coronavirus (COVID-19) and I thank you all for playing an active role in helping keep the community safe. We know that as a community we will get through this if we face this challenge together.

We want you to know we are here to support you and no-one in our equestrian community needs to work through this alone. We stand united with our goal to lead our sport through this crisis and remain sustainable so our thousands of members can return to the saddle again once it is safe and we are in recovery mode.

Over the last six weeks, the Equestrian Victoria Board and Management Team have had to act swiftly and decisively to implement some difficult decisions impacting our hardworking and committed team to ensure we are placed in the best possible financial position. 

That has included the cancellation of major events across multiple disciplines. More recently we have had to scale back our operations, move the office to remote working and shift the majority of staff to reduced hours or voluntary pay decreases with only a skeleton staff remaining. As a result, the “virtual” EV Office will be open from 9am to 4.30pm Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday and be closed on Wednesdays.

We’ve done this to assist our sport resuming at the earliest opportunity safely, and all in good health.

Getting Back on the Horse

We have been scenario planning what the 2020/2021 season might look like but this will be dependent on whether we can return to competition in winter, spring or summer. While we currently don’t know when this will be, what we do know is we can plan and prepare for the scenario that eventuates.

We have also been working with our colleagues at the Australian Horse Industry Council (AHIC), Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (RSPCA), Pony Club Victoria (PCV) and the Horse Riders Clubs Association of Victoria (HRCAV) to ensure we are communicating as much as possible and providing our community with consistent information in a timely manner. We are also working closely with all levels of Government to ensure they are aware of the impact on our sport financially. EV as an organisation is not immune to the impact of COVID-19 and as such we have applied for business support opportunities as they present themselves.

Season 2020 and Member Fees

We understand there are questions about membership fees and refunds.

Equestrian, like most other sports, is powered at all levels by the fees paid by our members. These fees include insurance, administration and competition support components and Equestrian Victoria in turn pays Equestrian Australia a proportion of members’ fees to subsidise national operations and programs. It is an integrated system which relies on having a thriving membership base.

The remainder of fees collected from our members stay with Equestrian Victoria and sustains our sport by contributing to:

• Essential support staff services for our disciplines, competitions and officials
• Technology systems making administration more efficient and enabling customer analytics to then grow our membership
• Events and competitions including development squads and clinics and development programs for Young Riders, coaches and officials
• Government advocacy which has recently resulted in the development of a Werribee Park Equestrian Centre Masterplan and development funding
• Marketing, communication and sponsorship acquisition to enable continued engagement and growth in our sport

As an organisation EV has made a commitment to build our business to be less reliant on member fees. And we are working to diversify our revenue streams.

As we face COVID-19 with the mindset to adapt, improvise and overcome the crisis, we are preparing to run an adapted season.  It will look different but 2020 is different.  When competitions resume, we must be ready. 

At this point because we are intending to find a way to get our members back out to competition in 2020, it is premature to consider refunds given the financial year ends 30 June. However, we understand there is anxiety and confusion.  We understand that membership renewals, which normally start in June, for the new membership year starting 1 July, may place more stress on our community. 

Therefore, given the suspension of equestrian sport for the time being, we are working to model different membership scenarios and will not communicate 2020/2021 membership renewals until 29 May 2020.

The reality is that Equestrian Victoria cannot survive a prolonged crisis without the revenue from our community funding stream and whilst we have some financial reserves, they will not be enough to sustain us indefinitely. We are doing everything we can to sustain our sport. 

We understand the profound effect this event has placed on us all, emotionally, mentally and financially.  Let’s continue to look after each other, be kind, stay safe, we will get through this.

Matthew Brown
CEO - Equestrian Victoria

EV AT WERRIBEE PARK

As an organisation we look forward to continuing to supporting both you, our membership and the future direction of our sport by creating a true home for equestrian sport in Victoria.

It is with great pleasure that Equestrian Victoria (EV), together with Werribee Park National Equestrian Centre (WPNEC) announces that Equestrian Victoria’s principal office has relocated to Werribee Park, the ‘spiritual home’ of equestrian sport in Victoria. The move was formally effective from 1 February 2020 and the office is now fully operational. 

It is intended that the office relocation will provide our members with an administrative and event support hub that will result in greater efficiency and a stronger customer service experience. The move is consistent with Equestrian Victoria’s 2018-2022 Strategic Plan with the five key reasons for the move motivated by our desire to provide:

• Enhanced Member Support and Engagement 
• Improved Administrative Efficiency
• Ongoing Successful Event Support and Delivery
•  Facility Development and Potential Future Government Investment
• Positive Financial Outcomes through Collective Savings for both WPNEC and EV

COVID-19 OFFICE HOURS

During COVID-19, the EV Office will be open from 9am to 4.30pm Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday and be closed on Wednesdays. All staff can be emailed outside of these hours.

VIRTUAL SUGGESTION BOX

We recognise the wide variety of skills and expertise right across our equestrian community.  Therefore, if you would like to help shape Equestrian Victoria moving forward and have some great ideas just how the future might look, please let us know through our VIRTUAL SUGGESTION BOX. We would welcome and value your opinion

AROUND THE STABLES

DRESSAGE EVENT CALENDAR 2020/2021

With the uncertainty surrounding events due to COVID-19, the call for Clubs, Sports Affiliates and other Organising Committees to submit dates for the 2020/2021 Dressage Victoria Calendar has been delayed.

However, we are now ready to go and secretaries should shortly receive information on how to submit event dates in preparation for the resuming of competition. Obviously, circumstances may still change, but we can still all work together cooperatively to deal with any issues that may occur during 2021.    

KEEP AN EYE OPEN FOR THE EMAIL FROM DV!

Course Designer’s Workshop with Pierre Michelet

On the weekend of March 14th and 15th Eventing Victoria hosted a Course Designer’s Workshop with world renowned designer Pierre Michelet. 

Attendees from Victoria, Queensland and Tasmania met in the Yarra Valley.

April Update 

I hope this update finds you all well and that your horses have been helping your sanity in these difficult times.

Your committee met remotely on Tuesday 14th April and whilst nothing can be concluded from a time point of view due to the obvious uncertainty prevailing at present, we did discuss some alternate plans for previously scheduled events.

Show Horse Virtual Show Results

All entries into the first ever EV Virtual Show were highly commended on their effort they went to by our NSW judge Diny Busell.

We welcomed Barastoc onboard, providing our class winner with a Virtual Voucher for a bag of feed of their choice.

Equestrian Victoria Show Horse would like to thank both Diny and Barastoc for helping us make this event a success.

Strathmerton Drilling Jumping Victoria Squads Announced

In March, the Strathmerton Drilling Jumping Victoria Junior and Young Rider Development, State and Squadettes Squads have been announced. Find out who is on the Squad by visiting the JUMPING SQUAD WEBSITE 

APRIL SQUAD
April Squad is not going ahead on the 18 – 19 of April and that the first squad training weekend will be in May 23 – 24.

EV will continue to monitor the situation and will be in further communication around any changes to the squad calendar.

KEEP YOUR DETAILS UP TO DATE

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