Fabulous Clinic!

WOW! What a great weekend of clinic-ing with Emily! I was so proud of how far everyone has come on - and so was Emily! It was great to see how every kid is so far further than they were the last time Emily visited!!!
Great job and a HUGE thank you to Amanda for hosting us!

See you at Parent 101!

Bridget

It has been a long time!

The one thing that they say about a blog...is that you should keep it current!  I expect that everyone has stopped reading this lately since I haven't been updating....

But you know what, I am back!  Check out our Facebook and make sure that you stay current with what is going on with Silver Bits!

Jr PC has started up again...unmounted meetings coming soon (weekly) and EMILY is this weekend!

See you there :)

Camp a HUGE success! Thank you!!

Thank you to all the parents who worked so hard and to the kids for being so much fun! Camp was a huge success this year; it just keeps getting better!
Next up, mounted meeting/show prep on Friday evening for those attending the 'D' Series show in Des Moines, and then it will be time to get our Games team together for practices for the MidWest Games Rally!
See you soon!

Bridget

It keeps coming; thank you!

We are going to have so much fun sharing all your very special donations and offerings with the families tomorrow night!  SBPC will be hosting a pizza party and gift celebration tomorrow night so that our kids can open some boxes and get very excited about the wonderful items that you have all been sending us; thank you!

The gift certificates and checks are most gratefully received; it is nice to feel that we have some long term finances as this will not be over quickly!  Vet bills and supplies won't stop and then there is the rebuilding; from fencing on!

Dixie and Brody are both doing well - wounds improving!

THANK YOU!

Bridget

Congratulations Silver Bullets!

Way to go!  First place in horse management and first place overall in their division at Polocrosse Rally this weekend :)

Kudos to:

Captain:  Steph B

Stable Manager:  Breanna H

McKenzie K

& Ben B

Good job one and all!  Check out the pictures; they are awesome!

New Event!

Tuesday, June 10 at Kids' Kingdom in Waverly. We have the shelter reserved from 5:30pm and will be having pizza, social time and a grand 'gift' opening for Ashley, Breanna, Liz and Michael as we give them some of the exciting stuff that has been arriving from around the country.
ALSO! Mounted meeting June 15th has been rescheduled to June 13th, 6:30pm at Centennial Stables.

See you there!

Sponsors' Meeting Tuesday!

Just a reminder that our regularly scheduled sponsors' meeting will be going ahead as planned! 6:30pm at Sarah's.
On the agenda; tornado relief fund and update, camp plans, upcoming meetings and more!
See you there..

Bridget

Update Day 6!

Good news!  Almost a week and both Dixie and Brody are doing better.  Brody's wound had started to become infected, so some of the stitches were removed and the wound flushed out...nasty business, but he will feel so much better now!  Dixie is on water therapy now for her wounds and that dead muscle is sloughing out of the big wound.  We still have bone exposed on her foreleg which might need to be shaved, but the wound is clean and not infected, so we are waiting a week or so to see how things go.  Dixie has dropped a lot of weight, so we now are feeding Omegatin as she turned up her nose at the Health-E Oil.  Gunnar is not nearly so fussy, so he gets the oil to put some pounds back on.

Both families now have houses to move in; no more hotel living....yay!

Items have started to arrive and we are thrilled  and excited as everything comes in - Lizzie, Michael, Breanna and Ashley can't wait to have their own belongings to take/bring to lessons and/or meetings!  Again, thank you one and all!

Bridget

Tornado Relief Contact

Thank you so much for all the outpouring of concern and promises of items coming for our PC families! We appreciate you! If you have questions about what to send, please call Bridget at 319.504.7671 or email at bryson.bridget@gmail.com. The address for shipments is:
32110 Westbrook Street
Cedar Falls IA 50613
Right now we are regrouping as boxes and deliveries come in - thank you to Hunter Oaks Riding Center, the first box of goodies to come to my house! If you would like to send money, please make everything out to Silver Bits Pony Club; we have opened a relief fund and those monies will be used towards horse care and vet bills.....eventually, hopefully towards filling in the needs that we can't fill through items that we give or have sent. If you would like to specify how you want the money spent, please don't hesitate to let me know!
Thank you for putting the smiles back on these wonderful PC kids' faces.

Bridget

Tornado Update

Sunday, 5pm shortly after our Silver Bits mounted meeting and cookout, right after everyone got home, the tornado hit us...and hit us hard. Two of our special families lost everything. Breanna and Ashley H. lost their home and their ponies. Of the family horses, Knight is in perfect health, Gunnar has a nasty puncture wound on his neck and gash in his belly and Dixie is badly injured....numerous wounds, nasty gash in her near fore and large open area on her hindquarters. Lizzie and Michael and sibling Nicky lost two of the family horses and Brody is badly injured and still suffering from shock. Patches just happened to be visiting at the Brysons and is unharmed.
As I write this it is day 5 and we are all hanging in there. The outpouring of love and wishes of help from the horse community and especially Pony Club members from around the country is overwhelming. Every message, note and email is being saved for the families to read over when they are ready. Brody is inching his way towards feeling better. Dixie seems well in herself although it seems that she shouldn't even be standing. She is losing a lot of weight and we are doing all that we can to keep her eating and to get that weight back on.
Breanna, Ashley and family have been given a house to live in temporarily, Lizzie and Michael's family are still living in a hotel room and are searching for something to live in as the house gets rebuilt.
We thank you...each and every one of you...for the love and support. I can't tell you how proud I am of our Silver Bits team as everyone has stepped forward, donated, helped, made calls and done everything they can to help our two familes in need.

Finally!

The good weather is finally here! Lots of sunshine, ready for our first 'real' mounted meeting of the year at Centennial tomorrow!
We have 8 kids 'signed up' to attend, so you will be split into two groups of four. One group will have some polocrosse practise, the other will be able to do some begining quadrille - a ton of fun and something that we will be working on at our camp!
Since I have been bad at updating our blog, here is the latest!
Success at our clinic! 12 kids participated and all had a BLAST! Congratulations to Rabia O. and Kallie H., our respective first and second place winners in the skills test, and then to Ben and Jordan who finished third and fourth, leading the SBPC kids!
Games Rally at Hoosier Horse Park followed the next weekend, with Steph's team, the Seed Spitters coming fourth both overall and in HM, and with Ben's team, the Racing Stripes, covering themselves in glory by winning both ribbons; much to their delight (and with 2 boys on the team, much fist pumping too!).
The fun continues with our mounted meeting this weekend and then our Polocrosse team, Silver Bullets, representing us in June at PoloX Rally - Steph, McKenzie, Ben and Breanna (SM) will be doing their best; and having a blast!
Watch out for TRPC Camp information (emailed out yesterday), our camp plans starting, parades, more mounted meetings, practices and more! Check out the updated calendar and be ready to PLAY!

Bridget

The season is here!

I can't believe that I haven't sent everyone a message for so long!!  The season has definitely started, with 4 of our members having already attended a clinic (check out the photos on our website), our own clinic coming right up and lots more fun down the road.

Congratulations to our Quiz Rally teams for their AWESOME performance!  Keep studying and learning at every meeting and see how much better you can do next year!

Go team!

B.

Living the Knowledge!

I hate that I missed such a fun Pony Club evening! According to Ben, the sale was just great; especially the foal that you all visited! Lots of comments on cuteness :)
Thank you Jen for bringing my kids; it is truly appreciated!
Thank you Jayne for putting this together.......what will be next?!!!!!
See you at Games Practices!

Bridget

GAMES, GAMES & MORE GAMES!

Friday night was so much fun; and it was SO COOL to see the group back on their ponies again!!!  Great job kids and horses; fun, everyone in control, and our games potential looking good!  Well done!

Those committed to Games Rally should watch their email for practice updates!

Roll on Rally - not long to go!

B.

Games Practice!

Finally!!! Games practice at Centennial Stables on Friday.
Trailers to arrive around 6pm, practice to begin at 6:30pm.
Drills, familiarity with games, figuring out the teams....it is going to be FUN TIMES!
See you there...

Bridget

Impressive Bandaging!

Wow!  I was very impressed!  Every one of you did a fabulous job with your stable bandages on Sunday, and wasn't Sunny a patient boy as one foot after another was wrapped and re-wrapped!  Good job all of you; it takes practice, but those were some impressive 'first goes'!  Well done too on your impressive trailer safety knowledge; I promise that I will find a head bumper to show you all sometime soon!

Thank you Alyssa for your time and patience showing the troops how to bandage the Pony Club way!

Did you know??!!

Did you know that if you use the CALENDAR feature on our website, it not only gives you DATES, TIMES and LOCATIONS, but that if you click on the MORE DETAILS feature, it will also give you a map?!  How cool is THAT?

Also, if you join Google (it is FREE), you can not only add your blogs, create your own picasa web album, but you can also set up Blog Alerts so that every time someone blogs on our site, you are sent an email to let you know....way to save time and not have to keep on checking....although, of course, we wish you would!!!

See you tomorrow!

B.

Unmounted Meeting on Sunday!

Join us Sunday for Junior Pony Club to be followed by our regular meeting at 1:45pm.

Junior PC will be a recap on Farriers...and trailers.

Unmounted will be all about bandaging and travel safety!

See you then....

Bridget

No official games practice this Friday :(

We are all still snowed in and/or scared to ruin driveways or face the muddy gravel!  So, no games practice Friday night.... :(

But, we will be playing SOON!  Believe me....I know how frustrating the kids are finding life right now!  Quiz is great, but we want to ride!

Bridget

Quiz Updates!

Although I don't have everyone's paperwork yet, all teams have been confirmed! We just need a new name for Ethan's team and I can finish the Club Worksheets!!
Thank you to Lori for figuring out rooms and rides! It looks as if we will be carpooling down at around 3:30pm, although that is still to be finalized, and we will probably only be needing 3 rooms - we will be packing those kids in like sardines! Going to be FUN TIMES!
Can't wait!

Bridget

Games on Foot!

Learn the rules of GAMES and the rules of the games that we are planning to play! Friday night, 7 March at 6:30pm at the Waverly Civic Center...
Here is how to get there (courtesy of Jayne!)

The Games location for tomorrow is at the WAVERLY CIVIC CENTER 1st Street NE (*in case you want to google location) This facility is located in the downtown Waverlyarea (1 block NORTH from the Waverly Theatre) to givethose people familiar with Waverly a general sense ofwhere the civic center is located! For those unfamiliar here are directions:*Take WAVERLY EXIT into Waverly (Hwy. 218 Business Route) Follow to the junction of Hwy. 218 and Hwy. 3/ Landmark: Just after DQ on left side.*Turn RIGHT at the 218/3- which is also marked BREMER AVENUE - you will be traveling East. Landmarks: you will pass Fareway Food Stores (right side of street).*FOLLOW Bremer Avenue across CEDAR RIVER BRIDGE and plan to turn LEFT at the stoplight just over the bridge. This is 1st STREET NE. (Landmark: Waverly Theatre is on the right side)*FOLLOW 1st Street NE to end of block- the Waverly Civic Center is at the end of the block... you will run into it if you try to go straight!PARKING/MAIN ENTRANCE: As you drive towards thebuilding you are looking at the side. You can onlyturn RIGHT and you will see the parking lot for theCivic Center. The main entrance has a canopy typeentrance- parking all along side of the civic center.Call me if you have questions or need Jayne Kielman'sversion of MAPQUEST! (cell (319) 231-2592)

Mock Quiz Super Stars!

Great job, one and all! From parent volunteers to (mostly) enthusiastic kids, I think that yesterday was a huge success! From Desiray and Courtney hooking up with their TRPC team mate (one more to meet at Rally!) to Best of Bits showing the power of the 'drop score', I think that it was a good 'all round' learning experience for the kids; and probably the newer parents too!!! It will be a while before I lose the vision of my daughter wearing Bob's pony rug!!!!
Thank you very, very much to all of you who helped so much and worked so hard to pull it together on the day; as ever, we couldn't do it without the team work!
Roll on the Horse Management Seminar in Galena this week and then onto bandaging and trailering the following weekend at our regularly scheduled unmounted meeting!
Our kids ROCK!

Bridget

Wonderful Website!

Congratulations Alayna! Through tears and tribulation...you did it!
We still have to add the forms and update the members' pages...and a couple of other clean up items, but the site looks AWESOME and I have already received congratulations from the web guys at Pony Club! Way to use the tools and to make it FLASHY!!!
Love the site - see how you can access this BLOG, as well as pictures AND the calendar!!! I am going to figure out how to get all the addresses and everything showing up, but it is SHARP!!!
Make a note of our new web address and bookmark/my favorite it TODAY!
WWW.SILVERBITS.PONYCLUB.ORG
Thank you Alayna!

Bridget

RALLY TEAMS!

We haven't got team names yet, but STARRING at Quiz Rally this year we have the following teams:

1.  Captained by Breanna H, we have Ben B, Jordan T and Meg S.

2.  Captained by Ethan S, we have McKenzie K, Ashley H and Liz H.

3.  Captained by Taylor from TRPC and along with Leah, we have Desiray J and Courtney C.

Then Steph will be 'scrambling' with friends around the region!

GOOD LUCK TEAMS!

MOCK QUIZ IS NEXT!!

This is going to be FUN, EDUCATIONAL and an absolute 'must do' (well, if you can!!), for those attending Quiz.

Held at the Cedar Falls Community Center from 10am through about 3:00pm.  Cost to join in the lunch (pizza and pop) will be $10.00 for the kids participating, $5.00 for parent volunteers.  Please note that if you are staying during the Mock Quiz, we will need your help!  Right now I have 4 parents who have volunteered - and me, of course!  Anyone else who will help, please let me know as soon as possible!!

Preparation planning help is needed!  I will be getting things together at my house Friday night from 6:30pm and then again Saturday from noon through 4pm.  Please let me know if you can join me to help!

Lots of learning and a great chance for the kids to get to know their teams!

Bridget

Getting Ready for Quiz!

We need to get our teams together!  So far the kids and/or parents who have said that they will be proudly representing SBPC at the regional Quiz Rally are:

Ben and Steph B, Breanna & Ashley H, Liz H, Desiray W, Courtney C, McKenzie K, Ethan S and Jordan T.  We are excited to have you on the team and hope to add a couple of more before we 'draw for teams' prior to Mock Quiz!  Kids, you get to choose your own team name, so start thinking of some good ones!  In the past we have had:  The Little Bits & Bits'N Pieces.  What 'Bits' or 'Silver' names can you come up with?!

It is going to be so much fun!

B.

Directions to Live the Knowledge Farm!

Of course, this might be weather permitting, but my goodness, I hope that we finally get a break soon!

Here are directions to the Dettweilers' (Lane's End Farm) for February 24th:

Take C57 East all the way to Fairbank Amish Blvd (there is a flashing stop sign), turn left/north onto Fairbank Amish Blvd.

Travel North to the next stop sign (HWY 281), travel straight on, continuing over the RR tracks.

The first gravel road to your right is 30th Street.  Turn right onto 30th St.

Look for a big red, hip-roofed barn, running north/south, in the yard that sits on the corner of 30th street on the East/right side.

Dettweilers' is the second place on the left, green roofed buildings & yellow, 2 storey house; Andrea notes that the 2 hyper little dogs (sound familiar??!!) are non-violent!

Note: if you get to Oelwein airport, you went too far!

AMAZING CAMP!

WOW!  This was truly the 'camp to beat all camps', and the kudos goes to Jayne for putting it together and to all our parent volunteers for making it work!

From the fun elements of swimming, movie, etiquette dinner to the learning opportunities (loved the You Tube gaits!), from Cory, our super Fort Dodge representative to 'Quiz Bits', our kids not only had a blast, but learned more than I think we have ever managed to pack in over such a short time!  Seeing the kids answer questions correctly on the written test that they had learned the day before was very satisfactory!

Feel free to create your blog and let us know how much fun you all had!

Great camp, going to be hard to top!  

Bridget

Horse Management Seminar in Galena!

Congratulations to the following kids who have signed up to participate in the Horse Management clinic in Galena March 8: Desiray W, Steph B, Ben B, Courtney C, Elizabeth H and Breanna H. You all are going to learn so much! Jaime and I will be going as the 'adult' representatives and will no doubt have a blast learning together!
Jaime, Steph and Desiray will all be staying over for the regional dinner and continuing the learning the second day; I can't wait to hear everything that you pick up and are able to share with the club.
I am so proud to have such a huge representation; go team!

B.

Live the Knowledge starts February 24!

What a great visit we have lined up! The team is invited to Robert Dettweiler's farm in Oelwein on Sunday, 24 February. With 35 head of horses, including a Percheron stallion and several mares in foal...and a couple of new babies too, there will be lots to visit and see! Robert and his wife Andrea help local Clydesdale breeders get their horses show ready and have a lot to share and show! The meeting will be at 3pm and will begin with Andrea sharing some information and then we get to watch as the horses are brought in for feed time and general chores. This will be one not to miss!

Bridget

Fun in the SNOW and COLD!

What a brave crew (to include Becky getting the car stuck in my driveway) we had on Sunday! Fearless Siver Bits members and intrepid Timber Ridge guests got together to learn about tack and (for the D3s and above) tack fit!
From figuring out that the BROWband goes on the BROW and the CHEEKpiece goes right over the cheek, to getting that tack sparkling clean, it was a good learning day and puts us one step nearer to knowing what we all need to know for Quiz!
Tack fit was a little quicker than anticipated thanks to the shivering in the barn, but I know that it was a fun time reviving old friendships!
Great meeting guys! On to camp......

B.

TRPC visits SBPC February 10!

Time to fly the SBPC flags!!
TRPC have asked to attend our unmounted meeting February 10 - and of course I said YES! The more kids, the more fun for all!! The D2 and below will be studying parts of tack, cleaning, putting together and generally how to care for your tack. D3s and above will be working on fitting tack, led by our Mighty 'B' Member....Alyssa! We will be having Jr Pony Club first, of course, at 1pm, and the main meeting will start at 1:45pm.
Remember your WorkBooks, Pins and a GREAT Pony Club attitude!!

Bridget

Annual Meeting Was Wonderful!

Next year's Annual Meeting will be in Greenville, SC - start saving now!  What a great experience Pony Club Annual Meeting is; not just for the DC, but also for all volunteers...and, even more important, for members!  With an Anatomy Room, Teen Room and more, there is something for everyone - and it is all about Pony Club!

For me, Annual Meeting was a 'refresher' and a reiteration of all the wonderful things that we can do at Silver Bits Pony Club.  Our plans for the year reflected well on our great intentions for our kids - I was proud to share.  I have lots of new ideas and lesson plans, as well as having had the opportunity to network and talk to those who can help and advise as we keep building the club.

Thank you for letting me represent our wonderful club!