Irena and I are now in Germany and have just finished the first two-day course here at the Steigerwald Ranch in Koppenwind. We have a free day so are taking this opportunity to update  you on this tour so far.
We left Australia the last week in May and flew to London where we were met at Heathrow airport by Tricia Day. Tricia drove us back to her property in Dorset, where our van is housed over winter. After a couple of days break to get all the gear sorted out in the van, we were ready to start our tour of the UK.
We started courses in the south-east of England (Mayfield, East Sussex) then over to Fordingbridge in the New Forest area.The weather was really good for these clinics, which makes it so much more enjoyable for the participants.
Next was the drive up to Argyll on the West Coast of Scotland to Tullich the property Shuna Shaw lives on, and then east to Killicrankie near Pitlochry for the next 3 day course.
We then travelled down to Stranraer to catch the ferry across to Belfast in Northern Ireland. Tricia Day had travelled up from Dorset to hold some training sessions for Equine Assisted Learning.(EAL) We held a combined demonstration day near Armagh for EAL . Tricia is using the Silversand programme for the horse handling skills in her programme.
 Next was the trip down south to Cahir, Tipperary for a 4 day course, before driving back to Dublin to catch the ferry to Holyhead. This is only our second visit to Ireland and we really enjoy meeting such friendly, humourous people.
Our next stop was Lisa and Mark Bruin's place near Huddersfield in Yorkshire. Another smoothly organised 3 day course was followed by our first UK Associate conference. All UK Associates were invited and we had business discussions in the morning. Many good ideas were being put forward and discussions were held on the better ways to help the students learn horsemanship. One of the main things that came up was that we needed more videos, and to break things down as much as possible. The afternoons were spent on horsemanship.
Lisa kindly lent Steve one of her horses to ride, and by the end of a few days he was so impressed with the horse that he plans on using he horse at demonstrations next year with Lisa's support.
The day after the meeting Tricia held another EAL demonstration day in Halifax and Steve helped out with some of the horse handling .
For more information on this, check out her website www.equineassistedqualifications.com
 From there we drove to Ruthin, North Wales for a 2 day course and then down to Credenhill near Hereford for the last 3 day course, before heading to Dover to catch the Ferry to Calais .
From there we drove to Monchengladbach for an overnight stop, then onto Koppenwind where we currently are for 2 weeks.
New Associate
Over the years that we have known Mark and Lisa, we have seen a lot of changes in them both.
In the beginning Lisa was the one that was into the horses and Mark was the helper (sounds a lot like ourselves in the beginning) to the point now where Mark is very much into the horsemanship and is helping Lisa during courses and lessons.
Some students are particularly asking Mark to teach them. We were so impressed with the changes in Mark that we have now invited him into the Associate team. We are pleased that he has accepted this invitation and are looking forward to adding his profile to the Assocate team on our website. (Better get it done, Mark!)
Course Reports.
We would like to encourage participants of any of the courses to write course reports, which we will be happy to add to the website.
We think it's much better that students write about each course, as this will have more of feel of what it was like for the students.
Silversand Club.
We have decided to give all club members a 20% discount on all courses that Steve conducts, as well as a 20% discount to any of the Silversand produced DVDs. We welcome any feedback on things that you would like to be part of the membership package.
 Back Home.
Thanks to Michelle and Bruce who once again are doing a terrific team job of house sitting Silversand and all the animals.
When we were in Ruthin recently (where Michelle's home is) we stopped to visit her parents and see her new quarter horse mare and foal (Zeus) who is a very confident little fellow. She will have a lot of fun with him when she returns home I'm sure!
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Silversand Horsemanship
