On 10th April 2011 an intrepid band of hardy TRECcies gathered at Princethorpe in Warwickshire to do some unmounted POR training followed by an evening meal and a talk from our inaugural Chair, Anna Lea. Central TREC Group was born!

Since that day we have run over 30 summer competitions, including at least one event at Park Farm every year, and 35 arena competitions. We created the Club Challenge for the TREC GB Championships and run training and social events for our members on a range of topics and in venues ranging from pubs to village halls to tents in fields! The summer and winter leagues are hotly contested and we award Milestones to mark the achievements of our members and their horses.

We are hoping to celebrate this milestone for the club as the year progresses, so watch this space for details!

Spring is starting to spring and, thanks to the fabulous efforts made in rolling out Covid-19 vaccines, there is a light at the end of the lockdown tunnel at long last, so your hard working and enthusiastic committee have been putting some tentative plans together.

Arena TREC season – our second arena TREC of the 2020-21 season (slightly confusingly named ‘Moulton 6’, but that is a sign of the craziness of the last year!) ran on 11th April at Moulton College near Northampton. The day was great fun, despite having the full gamut of weather from bright sunshine to snow!, though lots of people found their rules knowledge and general TREC skills were a bit rusty…

Park Farm GrassRoutes Series – we are looking to run a series of level 1 competitions from our longest-standing CTG venue (we’ve been there for every one of our 10 years as a club so far!)

• Park Farm 1 – Level 1 and TREC-nicality Sunday 20th June
• Park Farm 2 – Level 1 and Pony club Challenge Saturday 10th July
• Park Farm 3 – all-levels competition run in conjunction with our neighbouring club, Keysoe and Three Shires TREC – Saturday-Sunday 28th-29th August

We are also looking to be involved with the Horses To Health Relay, which is running in our area 8th-21st August. Plans are still in developments, watch this space for details as they become available.

We would like to run training for our members and may look to do this online in order to reduce travelling, particularly for unmounted training. If you are interested in doing online judges’ training before the Park Farm dates please email central@trecgroup.co.uk.

Please do also contact us via central@trecgroup.co.uk if you have any suggestions or requests for venues / events / training sessions / etc that you would like to take part in or help with in 2021. And remember – horses need to be vaccinated against equine flu and humans should be vaccinated against Covid-19 (when you get the chance to get yours!)

The CTG committee has been working away behind the scenes during lockdown, and we are pleased to announce that we now have an online shop! We are now able to offer membership, club clothing, equipment and entry to our events directly from this website. Payments will be processed via PayPal, though payments can be made by credit or debit card without setting up a PayPal account if you prefer not to.

Some of the products will appear to be free on the main store page, though we are afraid to say that once you select your options (which classes you wish to enter, for example, or which piece of clothing you would like to order) the price will change to reflect that.

We hope that this will be a convenient way for our members and other interested riders to enter our events, and it should also reduce the admin burden for our hard-working Entries Secretaries and Treasurer. We have also reviewed our financial systems and have decided to introduce an admin surcharge for cheque payments. Any payment made by cheque will be increased by £2.50, to reflect the additional time and effort required to prepare cheques for the bank and pay them in. If this causes a problem please contact us on central@trecgroup.co.uk (or email the Treasurer directly via helen.martin@trecgroup.co.uk).