EquiPow

Volunteering in England I volunteered at a similar riding school in England from when i was 10 to 15 years old. I was absolutely horse crazy and my mum finally allowed me to have horse riding lessons for my tenth birthday. I loved it and my cousin realised this and recommended North Warwickshire R.D.A (Riding for the disabled association) as they welcomed volunteers. The riding school offered boths lessons for abled and disabled adults and children, and was owned by a doctor who put a lot of money in himself but also donations and sponsors for the horses helped to keep the place going. As i was horse crazy this place was perfect for me, it was only 2 miles down the road so i was able to cycle there, and they never turned helpers away. There were between 10 and 30 helpers at the weekends and we all made great friendships. We started the day at 8am when we would choose our favourite ponies and fetch them from the field and into their stables. We would then groom them and tidy the yard. At around 9.00 we would tack them up and go for the helpers ride, which were given to the helpers if the day was not too busy and non of the ponies were ill, as they were rotated throughout the day so they did not get tired. After a short break we would take the ponies into the manege ready for the riders. Each lesson lasted for half an hour and there were four lessons in the morning, ten till twelve, and four in the afternoon, 1pm until 3pm. Usually there was an able bodied class followed by a disabled class, although this was cateorgrised on the ability to ride and the amount of helpers people needed. It would be unfair for people who could ride well to be in lesson with people who had helpers and could not go faster than a slow trot. Some of the riders would need someone to lead the pony, and sometimes they would need another helper on one or both sides of the pony to help stabilise them. Usually a helper would stay in the school incase the instructor needed anything and to collect the horse droppings, although both of the maneges (indoor and outdoor) were close to the yard and it was easy to shout over if necessary. After lessons had finished the ponies would be washed and rugged up if neccesary, and given their feed, before being taken back to the field. There was usually 16 horses on the yard, sometimes more and sometimes less. The most permanent horses had there own stables, whereas newer horses were tied up until a horse went into lessons and it would take its stable. The permanent ponies were Cheeky (Bay), Pippen (Welsh A - Grey), Pride (Also Welsh A, Dark Brown, Pippens Daughter, also my favourite, but she was very grumpy so no one else wanted to look after her!!), Corky (Dark Brown), Stanni (Haflinger, very odd coloured) Kara (Also a haflinger - Chestnut with a flaxen mane and tail), Sainsbury (Previously Gatsby Sponsored by Sainsburys Supermarket - Bay), Rupert (Norwegian Fiord - Dun with dorsal stripe) Claus (Also Norwegian Fiord), Binky (Palomino - Reached the grand age of 35, may he RIP), and R.T (Fleabitten grey - Sponsored by round table). I visited recently (8 years after the last time i had been there) and sadly i did not see many faces i recognised. The lessons usually had not more than eight riders in, so the ponies could alternate and did not have to work too hard. The ponies ranged mostly from 11hh to 15hh with the average being around 12.2hh. Many of the riders we had needed helpers at the side and this made it easier to assist them as the ponies were small, although obviously a rider would not be placed on a pony that was not able to carry the riders weight. During the weekdays most of the lessons would be booked by disabled groups which would all come together and specify individual requirements up front. Paid staff would usually work these days as the riders needed more care, although helpers still came in the summer holidays when the school had events on aimed at children e.g. pony days and 2 day camp. Late nights operated on Tuesdays and Thursdays and helpers were also invited then and the streets were still quite safe even during the winter nights for children to cycle home at 8pm. All but a couple of riders i met at this school absolutely loved the horses and the lessons, and you would here comments from them and their assistants saying how happy it made them and what a difference it was making. Even if it does not have a theurapuetic benefit the riders enjoyed their lessons and got a break from their usual day which is beneficial on its own. As i was quite young when i helped there i did not appreiciate the riders although i hope a made a difference for them. I loved this riding school and would spend all weekend and all the school holidays there if my mum would let me, although she usually only let me go on Tuesdays and thursdays in the school holidays. It taught me a wealth of knowledge about ponies which lead to me getting my own at the age of fifteen and without helping at the riding school i would not have known how to look after him properly. It also encouraged me to go to agricultural college and study a National Diploma in Horse Management, which i also loved, and then i pursued a career in horses. Unfortunately i no longer work in this field and am now studying Zoology at University, maybe i finally grew out of them!! I still love horses, and I will always look back on the riding school with fond memories and remember the ponies and the friends i made there.

I am also a student and work at Asda, part of the walmart family. I study in cambridge, so rent is twice as much as what i would pay in my home town but my student loan does not reflect this and my parents cannot pay for me so i have to have a job. My contracted hours are 12pm to 8pm on saturdays and i earn ?6.44 an hour (not sure what that is in dollars) which is not bad pay although in my home town i would be earning ?7 - ?7.50 an hour. The good thing about asda is they are really flexible and i am able to drop hours if need be and also do as much overtime as i like. During the summer i will do 60 - 65 hours a week, and if i am low on money during term time i can usually fit in 35 hours a week which is a bit of a struggle around my university work but i have managed it before as well as being able to keep my grades up. Usually i will do my normal shift and a couple of four hour evening shifts which keeps me ticking over.I am studying zoology and my lecturers are not very positive about getting a job after i graduate. They recommend either studying for a masters or phd or volunteering for a couple of years. Still these pathways do not guarantee a job as there are so many people trying to get into the field. There are some jobs which pay fairly well and i could use my degree for, such as water quality positions, but i do not want to work in these sorts of jobs. Hopefully my degree will not be a waste of time and i'll be able to use it after i graduate without getting into loads of debt, and i am keeping my fingers crossed for the future!

Remember everyone is individual and everyone likes different things! When i first got with my fella he kept buying me flowers, which was lovely and a great gesture, but i dont like flowers, they die quickly and then make a mess on the floor. I felt really horrible asking him not to buy them for me, but i just didnt want them, some girls love flowers, but not all so don't caterogise them! I recently went out with a male friend on his birthday and i said i'm help him find a girl. He's a really nice bloke but dosent have much confidence when it gets to the guy/girl scenario so he never gets past saying hello. I didnt realise how hard it was for you guys to make the first move! He's not a bad looking bloke but whenever he went up to a girl he liked the look of he either got completely ignored or they were very drunk and threw themselves at him, which he wasn't interested in! All i can say is a sympathise with you guys and sorry i dont have any good advice for you!

I can't believe people can just just say 'forget the animals', yes, humans are suffering too and that is not to be dismissed, but animals suffer at the hands of cruel or ignorant people and they can do very little about it. Unfortunately evolution does not move fast enough for them to develop measures to avoid us.Animal cruelty happens all over the world, not just china, but some places have tried to make any suffering to animals as humane as possible. I think the reason why people target china and the far east may be due to their traditions and beliefs. The tiger is endangered because of its penis, which is supposed to be something like an aprodisiac and is very valuable. Different cultures tend to view animals in a different light, and some cultures do not care if an animal goes extinct or whether it suffers when it is killed if it makes good money. I dont think a country or culture can be blamed though, i think individuals due to greed or a lack of education are probably more to blame, and there are people like this in england. Luckily england has some good laws in place which most people tend to follow, and animals which have been bred as food are humanely slaughtered and welfare societies are constantly attempting to improve conditions for the animals.It sad to think people do not care about these creatures being in pain as long as it tastes nice. I am not a vegetarian, we were not born vegetarians and i would struggle to stay alive myself if i did not eat animals, but i am always careful about what and where i buy my food from. I could never knowingly eat an animal which had been suffering for hours and then has a painful death. Hopefully in the future peoples views will change and less effort would need to go towards preventing such brutal deaths for these animals. Or maybe global warming will just wipe us out and the earth can start again with something more pleasent

Wow! It does sound like you have you hands full! Japenese akita - are they the ones like husky dogs? Upload some photos if you can i'd love to see them! I have one small jack russell/staffordshire bull terrier and shes enough for me! She likes to sit on my lap i dont know what i would do if she was any bigger! she has bags of energy too and is always running around but shes very sweet, i wouldn't change her for anything!

I'd like to think its real real. All the so called 'evidence' is probably fake as if it was a real creature and behaved like other large marine mammals it would not surface for very long, so the photos are probably not real, although some sightings could be. They could also be sightings of fish. The deep sea has not be investigated very much at all, so if caves are leading from the loch and into the open sea it is possible it wouldn't be sighted very often anyway. It is so hard to explore underwater that outer space has been explored more than the sea! There are new species of animals being discovered every day, with some large land mammals also being discovered, so i would not want to rule out the possibility. There could be a whole family of them and people have seen different ones accounting for the differences in description. Even if it isn't real, its pretty cool to think of a 'monster' in the loch and it brings in tourism and makes people hopeful to see it, making it a fun time there!

I'm a bit unsure about the theories which are put forth about global warming, so i'm not too sure lots of trees or less trees would make a difference. i watched a debate between scientists who believed global warming was caused by humans and scientists who thought it was the natural cycle of the earth. I cannot remember the exact details but every so many years or so the earth heats up and then begins its own ice age. They believed the dionsaurs became extinct because of this. Both sides had impressive supporting evidence which makes you think that both of them are right. One of these was there was no change in the global warming of the plant during the war, despite the amount of pollution which was released. This could mean the pollution which humans cause, which is a lot less than during the war, is actually having no effect on global warming. Obviously science has been wrong before and scientists tend to look for evidence which supports their studies as opposed to evaluating all evidence, which would be very hard to do.I cannot remember all the facts and i'm sure if you do a search for it an article or video would come up. It gives interesting thoughts on the subject and makes you wonder whether the governments can justify all the taxes they want to place to try to slow global warming. It was attacked afterwards by people saying it was misleading and misrepresenting the facts. The programme summary (called The Great Global Warming Swindle) can be found on this link: [http://forums.xisto.com/no_longer_exists/ as for the trees i dont think we should keep messing around with nature and genetically modifying things. If the trees grow naturally quickly and in large amounts then fair enough but we've done enough damage by not thinking things through correctly and this would probable be another one like that. Do we really need so many trees anyway? how about educating people not to waste so much paper?

Complete novice!I'm also a bit lost and dont really know where to start. i got my account a couple of days ago and haven't had much of a chance to start it up but whenever i've searched on the web i haven't had much back. i understand i can use html coding but how does this work? do i have to find the templates and things on sites where they show the html coding and then copy it or is there a place where codes colour the page blue and another code that puts text into funky writing? if so how do i move this into the public folder for it to show and how should i lay it out? i know this probably sounds laughable to everyone else but i dont really know where to start and everyone else seems to be able to do it okay so surely it can't be that hard. Once i get the basics then i'll be able to go from there and i'm not aiming for a completely profressional site anyway, just a working one. Is there a site that might give all this information without ending up losing all my money? If someone could help out i'd be very grateful and i'm sure others would be too!

My opinion - Video games are fun!Wow this has attracted a lot of attention! I think thats its all down to opinion, if you think video games are a waste of time don't play them, but life is supposed to be fun and if you enjoy playing them then why not? why do you have to listen to someone preaching at you that it is a waste of time? Like its been mentioned before, reading books, going to the cinema, playing sports could also be classed as a waste of time but people find them more sociably acceptable whereas video games are frowned upon. I think most of this is due to peoples perception and the pressures of society. For example (kind of), going to work is not good for you, you have to go to earn money so you can pay the rent and eat and buy usless things you do not need, but as you get older your back keeps putting out because you spent 20 years lifting bricks, your feet are all bent and mangled from the bad fitting shoes the company gave you and your hands are shaking due to holding pnuematic drills for so long. But if you dont go to work people look down upon you as its not the societys idea of the right thing to do (and your dole money dosent go very far) I enjoy playing computer games and also like the release they give me from life which i need sometimes. I'm a student and am paying my own way through university. I like going out with my friends and wearing nice things and owning nice things so i go through a lot of money. because of this i end up working between 10 and 40 hours hours a week, but i have high grades and dont want them to suffer so the rest of the time i'm studying hard and fitting in my social life around this. Sometimes at the end of a hard week when my assignments are in and i have a bit of time off work i dont want to do anything except zone out, and computer games give me that realease in a way books, t.v and cinema cannot. books do not give you the visual images you need and t.v and cinema do not distract me very much, i get quite bored watching them, so i find video games really useful. After a playing them i feel less stressed and more relaxed so i can only say their beneficial for me. No doubt there is some improvement to my skills as well, as the more you play the games the better you get at them so some sort of co-ordination must be improved - The hard level on guitar hero on the wii must require a lot of co-ordination!Fair enough going out and playing sports may be more beneficial, better percieved socially and you may get fitter, healthier and happy endorphins or whatever may be released, but some people just aren't sporty and don't want to play sport. you may as well play something you enjoy and live a good life rather than do things just because there supposed to be better and live a rubbish life. The way this topic is phrased is a bit insulting to people who want to play video games, everone is intitled to there own opinion and its not nice to try and force yours into someone elses face.

Are there similar games for download anywhere?This games cool, I've recently got into all the old games, my housemate and i are going through them and completing them, usually in one or two nights as well! I dont really like playing them on the pc too much as i find them quite hard to control, but as i cant afford all the consoles and the games (which are also hard to come by) i get no choice! does anyone know of any more which are similar to this and also free to download? We have a super nintendo but thats all, would especially like some old sega games. I downloaded zelda onto my pc a while ago and love that game, but cannot find the site i downloaded it from to see if they had the sequel games! most of the ones i found were just demos and i had to pay to download the whole thing!

My cat also recently passed away but it was his time to go. I'm still new to these forums and wasn't sure how to upload a photo sorry! He was the strangest cat i've ever known but he was also brilliant for it - he couldnt catch mice, he was not graceful at all, if he walked on a windowledge he would knock everything off and then fall off himself and give you a wounded look if you laughed! He was also very affectionate and would follow me around for hours on end and if you sat down he would give you 'kisses' by rubbing the side of his face against yours. He was a real character and is very much missed but he was getting on - 16 years and starting to feel it, so i'm sure he is happier now and free from pain.

I like the way people are so passionate about one thing, i'd like that but i have a bit of a longer list, i get bored of things for a while and then get really into them again. I love horseriding and everything to do with horses, and up until i was sixteen this was pretty much all i did. I wouldn't say i like them any less now but as i've got older other things have got in the way and i don't have as much time for it. I also like playing on the computer, playstation and wii, can get really addicted to some games and play them for hours on end until i've got 100% completion, even if it means playing until 6am when i've got work at 9am(bit childish i know!). Facebook is quite addictive too! I also like reading, will read with pretty much the same passion as computers games - until stupid o'clock in the morning, but only if the book is worth it. Sleep is a good one, i can stay up late, but hate getting up in the morning, sometimes my bed can be so comfy in the morning it can feel like the best place in the world! I also love my duvet. My last one is driving, i hate how much it costs, but love driving itself. Will go on random drives for hours to nowhere cos it relaxs me and i find it fun to be able to go anywhere whenever i feel like it.Anyway i think thats about it, would have been much shorter if i could just like one thing!!

The Law needs Improving! Animal cruelty also makes me sick, animals can be so friendly and happy with humans, yet one bad interaction can change there personality for life. Hopefully over time things will get better for animals, as more people are educated and their valued more highly. I know a lot of cruelty in some countries abroad come from ignorance and poverty, which you cannot blame them for, although it still makes me feel sick. I was recently on holiday in Tunisia and obviously because they do not castrate the cats there are a lot of them around, and as most of the people view them as pests they are usually kicked away and all very skinny and rough looking. One kitten could only have been 2 or 3 weeks old and was stumbling around meowing for his mother. He looked blind in one eye and was very dirty and small. I doubt he lived for much longer but i felt powerless to do anything, which makes me angry at myself. Intended cruelty i find much worse, and i think more action could be taken to stop it happening. I know when arrests are made in dog fighting most of the time people get away scot free which is really annoying. If the law was stronger against that sort of thing then maybe it would happen less anyway. In England we have no excuse for cruelty or neglect and hopefully less cases will be found in the future. Anyone who could possibly hurt an animal cannot be mentally stable, even when i'm angry and i shout at my dog, one look at her sad face and i'm pretty much giving her cuddles and telling her i'm sorry (she has me wrapped round her little paw). I hope the situation improves in the future and i will try to do as much as i can to help animals and stop cruelty

I'm also for cats i'm afraid! I think they have a lot more style than what dogs do - they do what they want whereas dogs try there hardest to please everyone all the time which can get annoying after a while! Cats seem more intelligent to me, they'll be more sneaky when being naughty whereas dogs most of the time will just be naughty in full view! I also like the way cats move - lots of grace and style, and they have the prettiest faces! Cats fur is softer and their more cuddly!Although i must say i'm not all against dogs, they can be cute and a lot of fun! I've been brought up with cats though so maybe thats why i'm all for them!