NEDA
...
New England Dressage Association
NEDA PREMIER SPONSORS
NEDA EDUCATION SPONSORS
2010 Education Presenting Sponsors
NEDA Symposia & Clinics - Home Page

2010 Fall Weekend Symposium - Shannon & Steffen Peters October 29 - 31, 2010 click here for Fall page
SYMPOSIUM EXPLAINED

NEDA plans and hosts two major educational events each year – the Spring Symposium (formerly known as the Spring Fling) and the Fall Weekend Symposium. Our Spring Forum and Fall Symposium are designed to make a major educational impact on the AUDITOR. Symposium topics and rider selection all focus on presenting an idea, training concept, and/or problem solving technique. At a forum or symposium, the auditor is the primary target of the education, not the rider. The symposium is not simply 6 to 8 hours of public lessons; it is a structured presentation and demonstration of the featured professional’s training philosophy conducted for the benefit of the auditor. A clinic, on the other hand, is generally organized on a first-come, first-serve rider basis, with the clinician focused on teaching and educating the rider.

When selecting demo riders, the rider selection committee is made up of the event coordinator, at least two additional members of the Education Committee, and a judge. The committee always does its best to select the most appropriate horse and rider combinations from the applications received. Incomplete applications and poorly shot video (smudged lenses, unfocused and distant images, etc.) don’t improve an applicant’s chance of being picked.

Only a few things are consistent within the rider application process:
• 80% or more of the applicants are professionals;
• the majority of applicants span Training, First, and Second Levels (making spots at these levels the most competitive and difficult to choose);
• you can’t be chosen if you don’t apply; and
• when you apply, applicants don’t know who else applies, and the overall mix of applications often profoundly affects the outcome.

Every featured professional, every topic, and every mix of applicants produce a different set of criteria and final outcome. Sometimes the “best” horses and riders are selected; sometimes a mixture of horses and issues are selected; sometimes the featured professional requests particular riders they’re familiar with. Riding in a symposium is not like riding in a clinic. The demo rider becomes part of the symposium presentation, and the demo rider’s ability to listen, adjust, and react become key components of the symposium’s success.

We hope that NEDA members and non-members of our regional dressage community take full advantage of the educational opportunities NEDA strives to provide. While getting away from home, work, and horses for all three days of a symposium is difficult, we strongly urge you to sit ringside from start to finish. By participating in the entire event, you’ll see transformations in horses and riders that can often be dramatic. We’re confident you’ll walk away having experienced a kind of learning different from that of sitting ringside at a clinic.