Stroud Pony Club is possibly the smallest branch of The Pony Club in the country, averaging around 40 members. However, what we lack in size we make up with heart! The Pony Club is an international voluntary youth organisation, dedicated to encouraging young people to ride and to care for horses and ponies whilst promoting the highest ideals of sportsmanship. Members of our club enjoy heavily subsidised rallies and trainings throughout the year and every summer we have a week long camp which is the highlight for everyone. As a charity, we rely on raising funds to enable us to continue educating our members at these affordable rates, and as such hold many events during the year, including shows and competitions. The club brings together many people from different walks of life, our members can be aged from 2 to 25 and because we all muck in and help eachother, the camaraderie is very evident. Many lifelong friends have been made for both members and parents/carers alike. In October 2017, our trailer and just about all our show jumps were stolen from our rented field in Lypiatt. We had fundraised for several years to buy them and they had just been ruthlessly taken. Fortunately, our trailer was insured but sadly the jumps and everything else on the trailer was not. The amount we estimated we would need to replace all these items was £6,000.00. However,with no jumps, how were we going to be able to put events on to raise the funds to buy more jumps, let alone raising funds to enable us to continue helping our members grow and develop their skills?! Thankfully, we are a resilient bunch and almost immediately our members started thinking of ideas - our youngest ones coming up with a cake sale. Amazingly, they raised almost £270!

Our members have helped out at both Uley and Dursely firework displays from which we received a generous donation so we can buy what will now be aptly named the "firework jump"!

We have had several extremely generous offers from both local businesses and individuals to donate and sponsor a jump for which we are truly grateful. We are almost there but really need your help to complete our mammouth task. Whatever you are able to donate we will be extremely grateful. Our club is about community, friendship and learning and what we have said we would love to do as a lasting sign of our appreciation is create a "community wall jump". Similar to the jump below but each brick on each plank (there will be 3), will bear the name of anyone who has donated any amount to this cause (only if they would like their name, or their pet or horses name, to appear). We think this will not only look great but will also be a reminder of how a community coming together can make big things happen!

Thank you very much for taking the time to read our plea.