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Hi everyone,
I am excited to meet all of you and get started on an exciting new year! I wanted to start by introducing myself.
My name is Kerrie Matesich and I am a professional trainer specializing in Dressage. I have been riding and teaching professionally for over 15 years and have had the pleasure of working with the Hunter’s Run Pony Club for the past several years. I earned a Bronze Medal with the United States Dressage Federation, am close to completing the USDF’s Instructor Certification Program, and am also participating in the USDF “L” Program. I am a board member of the Mid-Ohio Dressage Association and am their Awards Chairperson. I am also pursuing my Ohio 4-H Judge licensure. I operate my family’s Dogwood Grove Farm in Granville, Ohio and am the Dressage Trainer at Auchmeddan Stables in Pataskala, Ohio. I hold a B.A. from the Ohio State University and attended Capital Law School.
I am happy to begin serving as the Assistant Regional Instruction Coordinator and wanted to share some ideas Connie and I have discussed for the upcoming year.
-Club Level Instruction/Ratings
I’d like to see the return of the weekly Pony Club meeting! We need to pump up our instruction programs for many of our clubs with a year-long lesson plan implementing the detailed curriculum set forth from the National Office. We know what our kids need to be doing for ratings. What we need is a plan for how to teach it, how to gauge the progress, and how to know when they will be successful enough to rate. We can no longer send our riders to ratings without the foundations of a basic, balanced position.
The great news is I am here to help! At our yearly Instructor and IC meeting, we will sit down and put together this year-long outline. We will talk about what our instructors need to be focusing on in their lesson plans and how we can keep track of progress. We’ll share ideas about unmounted meetings and how to provide the most education to our members in the most enjoyable way.
I will also help keep track of our members’ progress with you. We want every child to be the most successful they can be and don’t want to send them to ratings prematurely or unprepared. When your members are ready to rate-up, a copy of the checked-off standards of proficiency will be sent to me for review. If there is a trend of “prepared members” repeatedly failing testings, I will visit and work with you to find ways to improve your program. Our goal is to set our kids up for success!
There will also be a directory available of Regional Examiners that best fit the Pony Club standard. We will rely on you to help build up this list, so that we can share it and help everyone have access to the best people. The same will be done with our Instructors. We want every child to have access to the best professionals we can find, and if you have an extraordinary instructor that teaches and understands the Pony Club way, please share their information with me.
-Regional Clinics
I’d like to build upon the great clinics we already have in place, like this year’s Standards & Rating Clinics, and provide even more opportunities for our members. The D3/C1 clinics are a great place to start introducing the more advanced knowledge, such as lungeing and teaching, that our members will require as they rate up.
I would like to also implement a regional C2 rating for next fall, spanning over a weekend with a clinic on Saturday and rating on Sunday. I’d like to bring in a national examiner and start to introduce our coming C2s to the quality that will be expected as they work forward to their C3. The C3 is now such an important rating with the introduction of specializations, I feel taking the pressure off of meeting a national examiner for the first time might help more riders to succeed.
I have many more ideas, but of course we must take everything one step at a time. I hope my ideas have spurred some creative thought in you about more steps we can take to improve and make this the most exciting, successful year yet!
Warm regards,
Kerrie Matesich
kmwmatesich at yahoo dot com
614-519-5782
Hi All,
I just wanted to take a moment to introduce myself as the Region’s new RIC and tell you of some of the plans I have for the Tri-State Region and for those of you who don’t know me and even those of you who do I thought you might be interested in my background. I am often referred to a "Jackie of all Trades" as I seem to wear so many hats.
Instructor/Education: Graduate of Lake Erie College and taught there for 8 years. USEA ICP Level II instructor (through the CCI* level), received the BHSAI while attending the Talland School of Equitation in England. Students have competed through the CCI ** level including the NAJYRC
USEF Licensed Official: Dressage Judge 'r', Eventing Judge 'R', Eventing TD 'r', and Eventing Course Designer 'r'.
Past USEA & USEF positions: Area VIII Chair, USEA BOG Member, USEF Eventing Technical Committee member, Chair of the USEA Organizers' Committee
Current USEA Committees: Area VIII Young Rider Coordinator, Competitions Committee, Young Event Horse Committee
Rider: ridden through the CCI ** level, recipient of the USDF Bronze medal, and a graduate B of the Lake Erie Pony Club in Western NY
Organizer: The organizer for 2 USEA/USEF, Winona & Stone Gate events for more than 20 years. Have hosted and organized numerous Pony Club rallies, ratings, clinics and camp.
Both of my children are active Pony Club members and will be receiving the USPC Eventing Recognition Awards: Kyle will receive the Gold Medal and Kevin will be receiving the Silver medal. Kyle is a past recipient of the Cavalry award and has participated as a member of an USPC international exchange. Kevin was a member of the USMGA Games team at this summer's Mounted Games World Championships in Belgium.
Well, that’s enough about me, now I would like to tell you a little about what I have planned for this year. First of all, I must say that I’m very happy that Kerrie Matesich has agreed to be the assistant RIC. Basically we have divided the responsibilities with Kerrie concentrating on the C 1’s and below and at club level while I will be concentrating my efforts on the C 2’s and above and those who teach them. I will also be working with Jen Sacksen who is the new VRS of Ratings in regards to upper level ratings.
I have been compiling a roster of C 2’s and up so I can communicate directly with them. However, as we all know kids seem to change their e-mail addresses all the time so I will post any of my communications on the Yahoo Group so you can be kept in the loop and inform any of your members that may have slipped through the cracks.
Plans are well underway for the first two Chestnut Ridge Scholarship clinics and camp. The first will be an unmounted clinic Jan. 19th at Bethany College. National Examiner Ellen Fischer will be conducting the clinic and there will be emphasis on longeing and bandaging with the possibility of additional instructors and topics. The spring date has been changed to the weekend of May 17-18 so we can do some cross country and the clinician we wanted. Susan Harris will be the clinician for the spring clinic, she is a USEA Level III instructor and a National Examiner through the A level. For more information you can go to http://www.springrun.org/instructors.html.
For those of you who were hoping that Daniel Stewart would be coming back or if you missed him last year, you will have the opportunity as Bethany College is hosting a clinic with him the weekend of April 13th. Plans are being made to have camp at South Farm this year immediately after their event in July but those plans are still tentative as we have to confirm the availability of the instructors.
While we feel that it is necessary to have clinics with National Examiners who are top notch instructors to help prepare members for ratings I believe that the key to the development of our members is the instruction that the members receive on a regular basis. Keeping that in mind Kerrie and I are going to put together a survey asking all clubs to supply us with the names and e-mails of your clubs’ Instructional Coordinators and instructors.
I am planning on at least two opportunities for your club instructors and upper level members who are teaching or will be teaching. The first of which will be in conjunction with the Mini Fest that is tentatively scheduled for March 15th at the Mahoning County Joint Vocational School near the Buckeye Horse Park in Canfield and the other will be an instructors’ workshop held in conjunction with the May clinic at Stone Gate Farm. Sue Hershey, who is the co-chair of the USEA Instructor Certification Program and a graduate A will be involved with both activities. So mark your calendars and look for more information.
If you have any suggestions or requests, please let me know. I’m looking forward to working with you and your members.
Jackie Smith
330-222-2089 or 330-277-6964
jackie at stonegatefarm dot com
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