It has been a while since an update has been issued and first of all I would like to thank those who have donated so generously to our COVID-19 Appeal to make up for the sharp drop in our income. Through your kind donations over £20,000 has been raised which will go towards covering our running costs. The appeal is still open and if you would like to donate – either please send a cheque to the Centre or payment through our JustGiving page https://www.justgiving.com/diamondcentre.
Many of you will have seen the Facebook updates and photographs from Dougal – our most intelligent horse, and we have received many favourable comments about these popular posts. Our small team of staff are still around every day to check and care for our horses and we can report that all are doing well – but maybe slightly confused by their long spring break.
As we move out of lockdown and the country looks at ways of slowly getting back to normal, we have been busy behind the scenes and looking at ways we can safely resume riding. As you can imagine we are faced with huge challenges to comply with the government guidelines and provide a safe environment for our riders, volunteers and visitors.
We are consulting with RDA and the national equine bodies such as BHS for their guidelines and advice and seeing how these fit with the activities we run at Diamond and the number of riders we have using the centre.
It is proving extremely complicated and at the moment it is too early to give a start date, but it will not be immediate. It will almost certainly have to phased so we would ask everyone to bear with us as we finalise the plans and as we start to speak to individual riders and volunteers about the preparations to resume.
The past few months have seen unprecedented events, the likes of which have not been seen in our lifetimes. It also took us by surprise, and we are continually having to adapt to new ways of working. Diamond is no exception and we are having to make changes on an extraordinary scale.
We know how important Diamond is to our riders and we are confident that we will come through this and eventually resume our full programme, but it will take time.
Finally, we hope that you are all keeping safe and healthy and from all of us at Diamond, we look forward to seeing everyone when we finally re-open.
COVID update – May 2020
