Time is Money

When people say "horses are so expensive!", many fail to understand the complete meaning of that sentence. Sure, horses require every penny we make (and even the ones we haven't made yet), but it's also about how much voluneteer time is necessary for keeping the horse world going around.

Horse show parents know better than anyone how much horse activities rely on volunteers, though it is evident in all realms of horses and showing. While the children are getting the horses ready or riding, much responsibility falls on the parents, and it's only by their help, support and generosity that the shows are possible. In the morning, the parents are generally the ones hauling the horse trailer to the show at 6:30am, just to be followed by working in the secretary stand or announcers booth (both necessary volunteer duties in order to keep the show going) during the day. As the children grow up in the horse show world, they learn how much time and work parents have put into the shows at no obvious personal benefit to them, and eventually realize how important volunteers are.

At the end of the day, it's not only the entry show bill that has been paid, it's also a huge donation of time and energy from all the volunteers that made it possible. It's easy to record the amount of money spent on horses activities and explain to someone how much of a financial burden they can be, but the importance of volunteering should never be discounted. Until it's personally experienced, it's hard to understand the phrase "time is money", but then, it's not until you experience the joys of living in the horse world that you understand why it's all worth it.

Erica Kasemodel
Pioneer High School
Equestrian Team

Taskhopper, a tool for equestrian organizations? Area8 (http://useA8.org) is experimenting with that idea. How would it work?

Each show or event would be a project within Taskhopper. One person who coordinates all activities for each event is assigned as the manager. When a new item is needed to support the upcoming event, this person receives an email to review the request. It's the role of the event manager to find a person or group that will handle that task.

The categories are all the volunteer activities that are required for each event. Because Taskhopper assumes that categories are all about the same general topic, this is where each type volunteer activity would be listed.

Obviously, the group that's putting together the above must attend very nice shows as the "Food & Beverages" category has been omitted.

Now, with all the event tasks entered, any of the members of the group can log into the system and see which tasks are still unassigned. The task menu will include an item with a number next to it showing how many volunteer tasks are currently unfilled.

When all tasks have been assigned, the menu item "Unassigned" will no longer appear.

Each time a member (manager or volunteer) logs in, they can quickly see how many items they have entered and how many they are responsible for.

Clicking either of these will produce the list of tasks that you either have created or those you've signed up to handle. And remember, Taskhopper is fine with having lots of people on the same task. In fact, that's why you would use Taskhopper -- lots of tasks with lots of people is a nightmare if you've ever tried to coordinate a show via email!