By Callum Ludwig
Compassion for members of the Macclesfield Pony and Adult Riding clubs has come in abounds after a recent tragedy, with two young members of the Seville Pony Club showing support for their neighbouring riders.
Following a fire that destroyed the clubrooms and historical items at Macclesfield Recreation Reserve, Emily and Jorja wanted to help in some way.
Seville Pony Club was holding their Freshman’s Day event on the day of the blaze and Emily said some Macclesfield riders were attending and told them what happened.
“Just to know that another pony club in our area now doesn’t have club rooms was really devastating to hear, every pony club needs a clubroom,” she said.
“The next day we had the thought that we’ve had a successful freshman’s day and we want to give back to other clubs who’ve supported our club, so we spoke to our mums about it,” Jorja said.
As a result, the girls had a total of $500 they raised and are able to provide to the Macclesfield clubs to help them recover from the devastating event.
Secretary of the Macclesfield Adult Riding Club Delvene Henderson said it was amazing of the girls to offer the donation.
“You always get overwhelmed and humbled by people’s offers of assistance and of help and to hear what the girls did for us was just wonderful,” she said.
“I’m very impressed and have an overwhelming feeling of being proud to be part of the horse community, every one of our members is extremely grateful.”
As two of the senior Pony Club members, Emily and Jorja had been organising and planning the Freshman’s Day, a form of showjumping event, for months in advance as a fundraiser for their own club. Emily and Jorja organised the format for the day, the event program, publicity of the event, raffle prizes and donations, canteen supplies and refreshments, courtesy notes to neighbours regarding the event as well as organising ribbons for the riders on the day.
Ms Henderson said the donation would go towards restoring the history of the Macclesfield Pony and Adult Riding Clubs.
“We have obviously got a lot of work to do in terms of getting back the information and the history, but our president Kelly has a lot of photos and we will be restoring those photos and getting them back up on the walls of our new club rooms when they eventually get rebuilt,” she said.
“Unfortunately, being an older building, there was asbestos in it, so therefore it has sort of slowed the process a little bit because we have to now get the asbestos removed so it will take some time, but we will get there.”
