USEA Instructors' Certification Program

USEA Instructors' Certification Program

ICP Information Page, 2011

Introduction: New Spring Farm, as part of a grassroots effort to improve safety and quality of coaching in the sport of eventing, has hosted Instructors' Certification Program (ICP) workshops and assessments over the last three years and will continue in 2011. Initially we gave special consideration to active Area IV instructors who were committed to completing the ICP certification process. However, the need for this valuable program is nationwide and all are welcome. We are equipped to conduct mainly Level I/II workshops and believe the need for these levels of instructors is the most acute, but have the capability to accommodate Level III/IV and will do so when needed.

Experience has shown us how really valuable these workshops are, how incredibly skilled the teachers are, and how much instructor candidates seem to enjoy and profit from them. At $400 for each three-day workshop, limited to eight candidates, they appear to be quite a bargain. Many people have audited parts or all of our workshops and also seem very satisfied. The ICP program itself, once fully seen, is quite obviously excellent. Those who have designed it and conduct the various processes meet regularly and continue to refine and improve it. We assure those considering being candidates that it is fair, complete, open, well-designed, friendly, and free of teaching style bias. While our angle is safety improvement for the sport, we also have come to realize how valuable the transference of horsemanship and basic teaching skills is that comes with it. In recent years ICP has instituted special meetings of those already certified to conduct ongoing education and to allow for a free exchange of ideas and techniques. This has enriched the program and appears to offer the important feature of continuous incremental improvement.

There is a continuing need for "demo" horses and riders, who are the basic material of all workshops and assessments. Those who participate in this part can and should be of all ages and levels from beginner up through very experienced competitors. As much as the "demofolk" are appreciated, virtually all find the actual experience of serving as guinea pigs for model teaching to be well worth the time and effort, and no one is charged to serve in this role. If you are thinking of this as a possibility, please contact us.

Our own role is to facilitate, and we do our best to make things easy and comfortable for all who attend. Though we live in a small Midwest town, there is a good commuter airport two miles away, with very good jet air-service through Memphis, via Delta/Northwest three times a day, and as Columbia is a university town, there are numerous good motels nearby. It has been our great pleasure to meet many new eventing people and to share our training facility for this purpose. We do hope that you will consider taking part. All inquiries are welcome at Holekamp@aol.com.

2011 ICP WORKSHOP SCHEDULE AT NEW SPRING FARM:

In order to make the process more efficient for candidates this year we are conducting a back-to-back double workshop on a weekend where there are not scheduled USEA events, or very nearly none. We will limit this to five candidates and complete both workshops in a total of four days, carefully assuring that no aspect of the workshops is omitted. It will be a hard four days of work for participants, but the time and money savings will be considerable.

DATES: JUNE 30-JULY 3, 2011
PLACE: New Spring Farm, Columbia, MO
TEACHER: Brian Sabo, President of USEA
CANDIDATE INSTRUCTORS: THIS WORKSHOP IS ALREADY FULL.
AUDITING: Due to the compressed schedule, auditing is particularly valuable and all are welcome. $25/day. Contact us in advance please, Holekamp@aol.com.

Tim and Cheryl Holekamp
New Spring Farm
7901 Highway 63 South
Columbia, MO 65201
Sales horses: newspringt@aol.com
Breeding to Windfall: holekamp@aol.com