What do parents do in pony club?
The short answer is “a lot”. While many pony club activities, such as rallies, are designed to develop team cooperation and team self-reliance without parents’ direct involvement (see “What is a rally?”), parents are actually involved in everything. Besides buying the necessary clothing and equipment, providing a mount (optional), and transporting the pony clubber and mount to meetings there are many other things that have to get done to make pony club work. Since pony club is a completely volunteer-run organization, if the parents don’t do it, it won’t get done. There is a direct relationship between the quality of members’ pony club experience and the level of participation of the parents. A few of the possible things a parent can volunteer to do are: • Painting and setting up stadium jumps • Providing food and beverages at meetings or competitions • Providing transportation for a field trip • Providing horse/pony transportation to a rally • Helping with fund-raising projects • Chape
