What a week we’ve had at MRT – our teams of Kiltwalkers hiked part of the John Muir Way for this year’s Virtual Kiltwalk Weekend, to finish their challenges at our Centre at West Fenton!
After weeks and weeks of training, including a staggering 1,046 miles of combined long Sunday training walks, our Mighty Striders and Big Strollers were delighted to finish, raising over £9,600!
There’s still time to donate here – online fundraising closes on Monday 21st September
THANK YOU!
The Team fundraising total currently stands at over £9,600 – thank you to every single person who has donated so far. The amazing thing about The Kiltwalk is that their funding partner, The Hunter Foundation, gives every fundraiser’s total an added 50% boost! This incredibly generous event is a lifesaver for so many Scottish charities in this difficult year, and we are so grateful to everyone for their support. Your donation is directly helping us secure the future of our service.
If you’ve enjoyed following our Kiltwalkers progress on our social media, why not join in next year and be part of Team MRT 2021!
Why not give yourself a treat and pick up a delicious picnic, filled with our legendary baking, this coming September Holiday Weekend?
Indulge yourself, share a treat with a friend, or have a family feast. And with 100% of the income from this one-off fundraiser going directly to support Muirfield Riding Therapy during the coronavirus pandemic you know you’re doing something good too.
Takeaway drinks also for sale on the day – tea,coffee,soft drinks £1. (Buy one of our final few limited edition reusable cups for £9, and we’ll give you a drink for free!)
Extra baking for sale on the day – there may also be some extra items of our legendary baking for sale on the day…!
The Virtual Kiltwalk Big Weekend!
The Kiltwalk has gone virtual for 2020, and we kicked off our Team MRT Virtual Kiltwalk Week in style on Monday 9th September, with our four Mighty Striders completing their 24 mile challenge! This weekend, even more Team MRT Kiltwalkers are joining in. In small, COVID-19 compliant teams, twelve Big Strollers are taking on the 15 mile challenge and are already smashing our fundraising goal!
On Saturday 12 September
Look out for our Volunteer Christine and husband Ken taking on their 15 mile Big Stroll, walking a circular route from Gullane, to Aberlady then back round the coast to North Berwick before heading home to Gullane again. Look out for them in their green Muirfield Riding Therapy t-shirts! Give them a wave if you spot them en route!
On Sunday 13 September
Although you can’t offer our Kiltwalkers encouragement in person due to COVID-19 restrictions, you can support them by sending a virtual wave on our social media, and by donating and helping secure the future of our service
Donate here
Muirfield Riding Therapy has been closed since the end of March due to the Coronavirus Crisis. As we move into summer, we are planning for a phased return to therapy riding in line with Scottish Government and RDA National Office guidelines.
With Indoor Arenas now able to open in Scotland we are looking forward to when we can safely offer riding therapy sessions again. The team have been planning for how we adapt what we do so that some of our riders can return.
Our Roadmap to Riding planning involves considering safety protocols for our Riders, our Volunteers, our Centre and of course our Ponies.
In the meantime, there are lots of ways you can stay in touch and help us to fund the upkeep of the Centre and the care of our specially trained therapy ponies, so that once we re-open we can help as many children, young people and adults as possible.
Sponsor our Rider Kirsty to Skydive!
Kirsty has been riding with us since she was 3 years old! Read her story and support her fantastic fundraiser.
Shop online – raise funds for free
Sign up to Give As You Live This is a fantastic way to help raise funds for us, for free! With over 4,200 shops part of Give as you Live Online, including John Lewis & Partners, Expedia and Marks & Spencer. They’ll turn a percentage of your spend into free funds for us. Simply sign up, search for the retailer and start shopping. It’s that simple!
Sign up to Amazon Smile here Shopping at Amazon? Raise free funds at the same time! Sign up, choose us as your beneficiary charity, then do your usual Amazon shopping but via their Amazon Smile login, and they donate 0.5% of the net purchase price to us!
Free 50% boost for our Edinburgh Kiltwalkers’ fundraising!
Sponsor our Kiltwalkers and your donation will go 50% further! The Kiltwalk’s partner The Hunter Foundation gives every Kiltwalker a staggering 50% extra on their final fundraising total!
Sponsor a Pony
Who’s your favourite? Sponsor a Pony and help us to continue to fund all the care our four-legged friends need to do their important riding therapy work and lead healthy, happy lives.
Get in touch
Join in the chat during Lockdown!
We have Facebook chat groups for our Riders & their Families and our Volunteers
If you need to get in touch please drop us an email and we will respond as soon as we can;
Chair, Michelle Sutton
Services, Susan Law
Administration, Shirely Duff
Fundraising, Debs McLaughlin
We are so looking forward to when we can see you all again and want to say a massive THANK YOU to everyone for your continued support!
Muirfield Riding Therapy is now closed, and its fundraising events cancelled indefinitely because of the impact of the Coronavirus.
But there are lots of ways you can help us to fund the upkeep of our Centre and the care of our specially trained therapy ponies, so that once we re-open we can help as many children, young people and adults as possible.
You don’t have to be super fit and some are free!
Calling all Home Hereos – Take on the 2.6 Challenge!
Click here to join in this nationwide challenge with us on 26th April – you don’t have to be super fit to take part, use your daily exercise to fundraise for us.
Sponsor our Rider Kirsty to Skydive!
Kirsty has been riding with us since she was 3 years old! Read her story and support her fantastic fundraiser.
We’re all online shoppers now – raise funds for free when you shop,
Sign up to Give As You Live We’re all shopping online at the moment so this is a fantastic way to help raise funds for us, for free! With over 4,200 shops part of Give as you Live Online, including John Lewis & Partners, Expedia and Marks & Spencer. They’ll turn a percentage of your spend into free funds for us. Simply sign up, search for the retailer and start shopping. It’s that simple!
Sign up to Amazon Smile here Shopping at Amazon? Raise free funds at the same time! Sign up, choose us as your beneficiary charity, then do your usual Amazon shopping but via their Amazon Smile login, and they donate 0.5% of the net purchase price to us!
Free 50% boost for our Edinburgh Kiltwalkers’ fundraising!
Sponsor our Kiltwalkers and your donation will go 50% further! The Kiltwalk’s partner The Hunter Foundation gives every Kiltwalker a staggering 50% extra on their final fundraising total!
Sponsor a Pony
Who’s your favourite? Sponsor a Pony and help us to continue to fund all the care our four-legged friends need to do their important riding therapy work and lead healthy, happy lives.
Get in touch
Join in the chat during Lockdown!
We have Facebook chat groups for our Riders & their Families and our Volunteers
If you need to get in touch please drop us an email and we will respond as soon as we can;
Chair, Michelle Sutton
Services, Susan Law
Administration, Shirely Duff
Fundraising, Debs McLaughlin
We want to say a massive THANK YOU to everyone for your support!
Win this Beatitude Spring Gift ?
Please support us by donating to enter our competition for this gorgeous selection of multi-award winning products from East Lothian company Beatitude. The gift contains x3 bath oils, peace pillow mist, joy body oil, soap and a comfort candle, and is worth £155! All products are designed to help with relaxation and are 100% natural.
Like the majority of organisations across East Lothian, Muirfield Riding Therapy has had to close its doors for now. We aren’t sure yet when we’ll be able to provide our life-changing therapeutic riding service again, but still need to keep funding the care of our specially trained therapy ponies so we’re ready.
Gullane-based Beatitude is a great supporter of the charity and has kindly donated this lovely gift to help you relax this Spring, and to raise vital funds for us. Delivery of the Gift Box to our lucky winner will be arranged by Beatitude.
HOW TO ENTER
1. Please make a donation – suggested £5 – via our ‘Donate Now‘ button on our website
2. Please reference your donation ‘Spring’
3. Ensure you tick to share your contact details with Muirfield Riding Therapy on the PayPal donation screen
4. Entry deadline – Monday 20th April, winner announced Tuesday 21st April 2020.
Thank you so much for your support ?
Kirsty, 27, has been riding with us since she was three. Her mum Anne got in touch to say Kirsty wanted to do some fundraising as her way of thanking Muirfield Riding Therapy, and she had decided on a sponsored skydive ! Although the original date of 26th April 2020 will need to be rescheduled due to the Coronavirus crisis, Kirsty is fully committed to taking on her jump and honouring all her donors.
Please donate to Kirsty via her fundraising page. Kirsty is very generously paying for the costs of the Skydive herself so that 100% of donations come to Muirfield Riding Therapy.
Mum Anne tells Kirsty’s story,
When Kirsty was very young she struggled with everything and life was a real challenge. She was diagnosed with Developmental Dyspraxia and her development was very delayed. When she did walk she just fell down all the time and life was all about bumps and bashes as she came into contact with everything around her. She was a brave and resilient little girl who just kept trying but it was hard to watch and we just didn’t know how her life would be. At times it just felt so hard.
Then, one day our lovely physiotherapist called Lynn told us about Muirfield Riding Therapy and suggested that it might help Kirsty. Kirsty was three by now and we decided to give it a go. It felt like the first thing that offered us some hope.
At that time Muirfield Riding Therapy was a small organisation which ran out of a tack room and outside arena, with just a few ponies. The volunteers were just fabulous, so kind and nothing was too much trouble. There was so much positive energy around a lot of it generated by [Muirfield Riding Therapy founder] Gill Morrison and [former longstanding Chair] Susan Law.
Kirsty just loved it and that was the beginning of her love of horses and riding.
We only rode in the summer in those days and she looked forward to Friday afternoons where she could feel happy and confident in the trust she had with her pony. Not only was she learning about riding but she was exercising her muscles and learning to be more coordinated. The volunteers also helped with her language development and in increasing her self-esteem.
This became an important part of our lives. There was the chance to meet other parents and a half hour break for us in the day, also tea and cake! There were Christmas parties in the tack room often attended by a naughty pony and Santa, and summer fetes at the Mallard Hotel in Gullane.
Kirsty gradually made progress and life progressed so much the better for her riding. She was later diagnosed with a Learning Disability but that was just our Kirsty and she has managed that as everything else in her life with a positive attitude and a smile.
Now age 27 years old and living independently in her own wee flat close to her family home she continues to look forward to the blocks of riding with Muirfield Riding Therapy. Much has changed in those years both for Kirsty and for the charity. There was the building of the indoor school and the visit from HRH Princess Anne, who Kirsty had the pleasure of meeting, and the growth and expansion of Muirfield Riding Therapy as it became a more professional organisation able to offer therapy to so many more people.
Although there may be less intimacy of the smaller organisation, the commitment of the volunteers remains the same as does the difference they make to the lives of those who come to ride.
If it hadn’t been for Muirfield Riding Therapy I think Kirsty’s life may not have been so easy and she doesn’t think she would be the person she is today. A confident young woman who still may trip and fall and may not always understand a complicated question but not too frightened to ask and just dusts herself off.
She gives back what she was given and has been a volunteer at the Daycentre in North Berwick for the last eight years and in Oxfam for the last five years. She greets people with great warmth and is well loved by all. Kirsty has a brave and adventurous spirit. She has taken part in the Tall Ships with a week’s voyage where she climbed to the top of the mast! She has also abseiled off the Forth Rail Bridge to raise funds for Chest Heart and Stroke.
She has always wanted to do a skydive and decided she wants to raise money for Muirfield Riding Therapy to say thank you for all they have done for her. She knows is expensive to keep it all running and wants to help others get the support she gets. She is paying for the skydive herself and she has set up a JustGiving page and has a target of £650. We hope people will give generously for this amazing charity that works with so many people in East Lothian and beyond.
Everyone at Muirfield Riding Therapy is extremely proud of Kirsty!
The Coronavirus has had a devastating impact on Scottish events and charity fundraising. The Kiltwalk series is one of Scotland’s top mass participation fundraisers. In a show of incredible support and kindness, Kiltwalk partner The Hunter Foundation has announced they will continue to donate their generous bonus to Kiltwalkers even if walks are cancelled!
We love being part of the Edinburgh Kiltwalk. The MRT Team will be part of the Edinburgh Kiltwalk 2020, on Sunday 13th September and we’d love you to join us! It’s a wonderful way for small charities like ours to fundraise. The Hunter Foundation, announced earlier this year it will be upping its charitable bonus to every participant’s fundraising total to a whopping 50%!
In 2019 Audrey took part with her son David, who is one of our Riders, and their family,
We had a wonderful time taking part in the Kiltwalk this year. We did the Wee Wander, which is 5 miles, and it was a lovely walk. The atmosphere was so friendly and we got chatting to lots of people raising funds for other charities too. It was so rewarding to raise money for MRT, a charity we love, and an organisation that has given David, and the rest of our family, so much support over a long number of years. We would encourage other families to take part in the Kiltwalk and to support this amazing organisation, which gives so much to all of our riders and their families.
There are three distances to choose from, 5 mile Wee Wander , 14.5 mile Big Stroll, 24 mile Mighty Stride with the shortest distance, the 5 mile Wee Wander being wheelchair accessible, and all ending at Murrayfield Stadium with the Kiltwalk Party!
Shirley is our Office Manager, and was one of our Kiltwalkers last year,
2019 was my second time doing the Kiltwalk for MRT. We did some practice walks before hand which was really nice and great having the time to walk and chat with other fantastic team members from different sessions. MRT has lots of different fundraisers, but for me, walking, talking and being offered food along the way is ideal!! While the feet were hot and the hips were a wee bit worn out, it was a great day from start to finish and we all had BIG smiles on our faces at the end of our achievement.
There are lots of way you can get involved; as a walker, a donor or as a volunteer. Find out how to register to walk, donate or volunteer at The Edinburgh Kiltwalk for Team MRT
Tuesday 17 March 2020
From Michelle Sutton, Chair, Muirfield Riding Therapy,
Hello Everyone,
I am writing to you with a heavy heart to let you know that Muirfield Riding Therapy is now closed because of the impact of the Coronavirus. This closure includes the cancellation or postponement of all training and fundraising events until the end of May.
As has always been the case the health and well being of our riders and volunteers is the priority in our decision making process. With the recent government announcements we feel we can no longer operate our riding therapy sessions.
I know that this will be really disappointing to those people who will miss the last 2 weeks of their terms riding. We are already getting calls about when we will reopen – the honest answer is we simply do not know. We will review again on a regular basis but I do not expect to open before the 1st June and so unlikely to offer regular sessions until after the Summer holidays.
To protect our team of volunteers and employees the MRT office will not be manned for the next few weeks. Instead our admin teams will be working from home as much as they can. If you need to get in touch please drop us an email and we will respond as soon as we can;
Chair, Michelle Sutton: [email protected]
Services, Susan Law: [email protected]
Administration, Shirely Duff: [email protected]
Fundraising, Debs McLaughlin: [email protected]
Thank you for your support and understanding at this difficult time. Our thoughts are with you all and we look forward to seeing our riders back in the future.
Stay safe!
Michelle
Coronavirus and Muirfield Riding Therapy
Friday 13 March 2020
From Michelle Sutton, Chair, Muirfield Riding Therapy,
Hello everyone, the health and well being of our riders and volunteers is of paramount importance. We are continually reviewing our position on the Coronavirus and will be updating on a weekly basis.
For the moment we will continue to offer riding therapy sessions and will do so in line with Government and National Health Authority advice. If schools decide to close then we would also close – we are not at that stage yet.
- If you feel unwell please stay away from MRT. Call the Office and let us know – 01620 842502
- If you are being tested for Coronavirus, even if you have not had it confirmed, please contact Michelle Sutton on 07888 754995 in confidence. This will enable us to take appropriate action to safeguard our volunteers and riders.
- If you have been on holiday please check the up to date guidance for travelers before returning to MRT. Depending on where you have been you may need to stay away from MRT for a couple of weeks. Based on latest advice If you have visited any of the following areas please don’t come to MRT for 14 days from your date of return:
- Cambodia
- China
- Hong Kong
- Iran
- Italy
- Japan
- Laos
- Macau
- Malaysia
- Myanmar (Burma)
- Singapore
- South Korea
- Taiwan
- Tenerife – only the H10 Costa Adeje Palace Hotel
- Thailand
- Vietnam
MRT Board will continue to monitor the situation and will issue further guidance as required. If you decide that the best option for you is to stay away from MRT then please let us know so we can adapt sessions accordingly.
Thanks all – take care and remember Catch it, Bin it, Kill it!
Michelle