It's Rainin' Rallies!

First of all, my apologies for the lack of blogging over the past week...while many of you were probably feeling overwhelmed with final exams or papers at school, I was feeling overwhelmed by things that needed to get done at the office. Because of this, The Daily Sheet had to sit on the back-burner for a little bit - sorry about that!

(Grady helps me field client calls at the office...)

This past weekend marked the official start to the mounted rally season here in the Capital Region with TETRATHLON! Unfortunately, I had a scheduling conflict that kept me from helping with Horse Management, but that didn't mean I didn't have stuff to do for the rally! As the Horse Management Organizer (HMO) for the Capital Region, I am responsible for making sure that each rally has all of the required HM paperwork available and ready to go...so all those forms that we use when we're judging? Yeah, I photocopy those! The Capital Region also maintains an HM Rally Box that contains those random things like pens, pencils, a stapler, clipboards, and wet wipes that help the HM judges do what they need to do during the rally. Grady the Gnome was a BIG help in getting our HM paperwork ready this year - he guarded the photocopier so that no one would steal my C3/B/HA/A Turnout Inspection sheets as they were printed! You know those are a HOT commodity!

(Grady the Gnome helped organize all of Capital Region's HM paperwork - We LOVE file folders!)

One of the other things I do as the HMO, and probably one of the hardest parts of the job is making sure every rally has enough Assistant HM judges. First of all, it is really, really, REALLY important for me to have judges who believe in what HM is trying to teach you. To competitors, it may seem like HM is all about smudges of dirt on your tack or a single flake of dandruff in your horse's tail, but it is MUCH bigger than that - it's horsemanship skills and life skills! I equate the Turnout Inspection with a job interview - you want to make the best impression possible as well as be on time. The Required Equipment check shows us a little bit about how you guys work as a team - there is a lot of stuff on that list, so it's a big deal for your team to keep it organized and have everyone know where to locate things. The Inquiry Process teaches you how to respectfully disagree with an assessment and support your argument with rules...These are all things that I use every day in my job that in no way involves a whinnying quadruped! I also appreciate how one bad attitude (be it from a competitor, parent, or rally volunteer) can really make for a negative rally experience, so I spend a lot of time finding the right people to help make our rallies fun opportunities to learn.

One of the most important things the HMO does is collect all of your HM Evaluations from every rally and send it to the USPC National Horse Management Committee. The question I am always asked is, "does anyone even bother to read those evaluations?" Yes, they are read. How do I know? Because I am one of the people who reviews them! In fact, I have quite an impressive stack of HM evaluations from around the country from the 2010 rally season sitting in the middle of my apartment! I love reading the positive evals and all about the judges you really like having at your rallies, but it is also important for me and the rest of the HM Committee to hear about your "bad" experiences, too. Thi feedback helps us focus judge training on what you - the competitors, the people being judged - think are our weak points! And at the end of every year, the HM Committee takes all of these comments and makes "Report Cards" for each of our Chief HM Judges so that they have an idea about what they did really well during the rally season, as well as those things that they might want to work on for the future. I look at it this way - Competitors and Judges are constantly learning from eachother. I've never NOT learned something new at a rally, and at this point, I've been to a lot of rallies in my life!!! That's A LOT of learning!!

So make sure you take the time to fill out your evaluations at every rally and hand them in! Grady and I look forward to reading about your rally experiences!

(Grady wants to remind you that a rulebook is only considered "Current & Complete" when you have the current year's Newsletter and the Rulebook with any Addenda! He checked all of my rulebooks at least twice!!!)

Happy Rallying and...pssst...61 days 'til Festival!!!!