One of my favorite things about the eventing community is the people. Sure, many of us are crazy… But what horse people aren’t??? While I have met great people in all areas of the horse world I can say without a doubt that the eventing community feels like home.
My break from competition also meant a break from volunteering. And honestly I didn’t volunteer as much as I should have when I was able. Some venues make volunteering a breeze… and others… well don’t.
When Amanda asked me if I would be interested in volunteering at a Texas venue with her I said yes. When I realized we would have to leave at like 5am to drive 2 hours there I was kicking myself a bit. But then I thought about all the times that I compete and don’t volunteer. I owe this sport that I love some of my time!
Naturally food was a primary focus of our roadtrip… Amanda introduced me to this awesome snack pack from Buc-ee’s and then we also got Which Which and Fro-yo. New volunteer road trip chant… “which which fro yo which which fro yo”!
There are a lot of people that don’t even ride that volunteer at events. There are also a lot of ungrateful people that treat those people that do quite poorly. Just because you see someone working an event doesn’t mean they are getting paid to do so. Regardless people just need to treat other people better… I don’t think we need to go around kissing the feet of volunteers but a thank you here and there or just a smile/ good attitude goes a long way. Thankfully I haven’t personally encountered anything awful while volunteering but I do know others that have.
As eventers we love how much more affordable our sport is. Compared to other disciplines eventing is cheap (obviously there are exceptions to this). Part of that is due to the gracious hosts/owners of the event venues. Another big contributor is the number of volunteers. Eventing will get really expensive really fast if venues can’t continue to count on volunteer efforts.
All that said – I plan to volunteer as often as I can now. If you haven’t you should think about it! It was a fun way to meet other people that love this sport while supporting it! Bea and I had a blast working the bit check tent this weekend and hopefully will get to do it again soon.
If you volunteer regularly at events what are some jobs that you enjoy? Is there anything besides bit check that you think would be baby friendly?
Jump judging would probably be baby friendly! Just post up at a jump and talk into a walkie-talkie.
Yeah that’s what I was thinking. 🙂
This year was my first year venturing into volunteering. I ended up volunteering at as many events as I competed at, which I think it is a nice ratio! hahaha. I really enjoyed both SJ scribing and XC jump judging. I would love to do something for a Dressage phase, but a lot of events around here run Dressage on Fridays, and well, I am not going to sacrifice a PTO day to volunteer.
That is fair! Thanks for volunteering 🙂
I think my favorite job to volunteer for is SJ scribe. It’s less stressful than dressage scribing and you can learn a lot just by listening to the SJ judge make comments and watch stellar and not so stellar rides. I also like timing for SJ and there are usually 2 timers so if Bea had a moment you could probably step out really quick and deal with it.
Glad you had a great time volunteering and little Bea is so cute with her bumble bee outfit!!!
Thank you! I love putting her in bee themed stuff 🙂
I volunteered as a scribe at a local show and loved it! If weekends off were something I had consistently, I would do it more often.
Scribing is a good job / very educational a lot of the time.
Good to see you’re back to blogging. I like score running though it’s probably not very baby friendly. XC Jump judging seems pretty baby accessible and I enjoy it.
Thanks! 🙂 And yeah my plan is bit check and then jump judging I think for this next show.