During National Coaches Week, Rda National have been doing a #RDAShoutOut each day for a coach that had been nominated by a fellow member of their Rda group, for doing something outstanding in their role as an Rda coach.

It was quite a surprise to find out I had been nominated by seeing RDA National’s #RDAShoutOut tweet on Tuesday 15th September.

“Todays #RDAShoutOut goes to Helene Hewitt of East Devon RDA. Helene writes a newsletter every week for riders and volunteers, with quizzes, horse care information and more – all designed to keep her RDA community involved and up to date. Thank you Helene!”

However the success of the newsletter isn’t just down to me, a great deal has to be down to all my fellow volunteers, the riders and their families taking the newsletter on board and embracing it by participating in all the challenges, quizzes and sending me contributions of their own for inclusion in the newsletter over the weeks.

Over the weeks, the newsletter has evolved with regular articles, collection of pictures, quiz questions for both riders and helpers, an array of challenges set, a profile of a rider/helper, and as with normal tradition of all good newsletters, it ends with a ‘And finally’ this was bestowed upon my six-year-old nephew, who’s named Henry, which made a perfect title line “What Henry did next:-” When writing about his weekly antics.