National Rider Development Program

[Ramey Peticolas-Stroud <ramey@wvi.com>]

Shelly, did you see the post on the AERC International Committee's
National Rider Development Program?

Basically, the proposal calls for the development of 24 one-hour blocks
of training which represents two seperate week-end seminars.  By
splitting the lesson plans, handouts and audio visuals into one-hour
blocks, the materials can also be presented in smaller segments over
time.

For example, we have presented 12 week endurance classes on Thursday
nights through the local riding club/community college.  Funny, the
majority of students turned out to be eventers and trail riders.  Of the
30 or so students we had about 12 did their first endurance ride the
following summer.

The one-hour segments could also be presented at rides on Fridays or
Sundays, or maybe both.  Obviously, the audio visuals in a ridecamp
setting would be harder to do, but better than no education at all.

Instructors for the classes and seminars would probably be experienced
riders who had attended an adult education class presented at the 1999
AERC conference.  In other words, riders would receive the classes in a
train-the-trainer hand-off format.  All lesson plans, a/v's, etc. would
be duplicated 10 times over to allow each AERC Region to have it's on
seminar packages.  This costs more but is intended to prevent scheduling
conflicts.

All of this was approved in concept in KY.  Now final details are being
developed for presentation at the mid-year board meeting.  To make sure
this detail work is on target, we want to appoint a National Rider
Development Program Advisory Panel in the next 30 days.  

Do you and all other ridecampers have any thoughts about who should be
on the Advisory Panel?  It needs to be broad-based.

Ramey