If you are one of the very kind people who has generously adopted one of our horses you will be invited to the annual adopters day to be held one Sunday in January 2007.

We hope that you will enjoy your day with your favorite horses.

They all certainly enjoy being with people again, by January it's a long break for them during the winter with no visitors to help keep "them" entertained!!!!

 

 

  Welcome.

My wife Pauline and daughters Maria, Nicola & myself have been going to Northcote since 1989, and have been working as regular volunteers since 1993, We spend half terms, summer and winter holidays and long weekends helping to run the centre and even though we live 130 miles away (we live in Essex) i try to get up there at least once per month.

Over the past few years the volunteers have ............................ Concreted the floors of all the night quarters. Concreted the carriage shed floor.Demolished the old shop and replaced it with a nice second hand replacement Porta cabin type shop (that was kindly supplied to us by BIRDS EYE/WALLS) Decorated it inside and out (with paints that were genorously donated by WICKS diy stores) Fitted new work surfaces in the tea room. Installed and fitted out 3 other porta cabins. Contructed a concret foot bath for the horses. Started to create an all weather paddock for the horses to be able to use during the winter months, this involves many tons of chopped up old rubber that is spread over the paddock and trodden down in to the mud so that he grass will still grow but the ground won't get all chewed up by the horses hooves.                                                               We are also now building a new larger hay store, and shelter for the lorry to live in.(the old one blew down in some high winds earlier in the year) plus many many other plumbing, electrical, building and decorating jobs almost all of which are to make life better for the horses or our visitors (just the odd one or two have been to make our lives that bit better like having a shower fitted in the loos)

Apart from Keith (the boss) and Terena (deputy boss) everybody else who turns up week after week in all weathers summer and winter is a volunteer who gives their time for free as we want to make a difference for the horses and to help try and make the centre a success, Every one of us first started out as a visitor who turned up for a day out and is still there.

A typical day for a volunteer will start at around 8.30 when we muck out the big barn where Harvey, Magnus, Duncan, Douglas, Bonnie and Clyde sleep, Once that is done we move the big boys (May is an honerary boy) out of their night quarters and in to the big barn so that we can get their beds mucked out, between 4/6 wheelbarrows full from each bed all to be put up on to the muck trailer, Then empty, clean and refill the water butts.

This can take about an hour if there are four or more people doing it but it can take as much as three hours if there is only one person doing it on their own.

After a break for a well earned cuppa, if the centre is not open we all get on with what ever is the priority that day, it could be that Keith and Terena will be be doing rehersals with some of the horses for one of our special events days, while we could be doing anything from welding a gate (if Jacob had a restless night) to building a Roman chariot, from putting on a fresh coat of paint to making two dozen wooden swords.

After lunch we go back down to the bottom end and lay the beds, ie put fresh straw down for the horses to sleep on (after all if we didn't put the beds down every night we would have nothing to do for the first couple of hours every morning) After that its usually time to finish off and tidy up from the jobs we have been doing during the day, The volunteers who come in daily will normally finish about 4pm, as my family and i stay on site when we are there we will probably potter around getting odd jobs done for another couple of hours especially during the summer.