Our New field shelter

It all began back in January 2017 when the Friends of Savvy fundraising committee met to discuss the next project, Amanda Phelps, the business owner suggested a field shelter for the horses as this would be essential when the weather turned bad, so the committee set about running a number of events to raise the £1,800 required.

Forever Savvy is a Social Enterprise whose mission is to coach and mentor adults with learning disabilities; such as Downs Syndrome and Autism to move into paid or voluntary employment with the on-the-job support and assistance of a Job Coach. They run three training centres;

• Horse Savvy which focusses on horse whispering and land management, in Potters Marston, near Stoney Stanton.

• K9 Savvy which focusses on dog agility, gardening and woodworking skills in Bagworth

• Café Savvy a working cafeteria open the to the general public also in Bagworth.

The horses, rabbit and chickens at Horse Savvy enable their trainees to integrate with and take care of the animals. They work as a means to coach them in the skills needed in the work place.

Within six months, with the help of a number of very kind people not least of which was The Crow’s Nest pub on Glenfield Road, Leicester who ran two very successful events raising the huge sum of £1,100, a substantial help to the final figure.

Next was the planning and for this some handy builder types were required; Keith Sperry the son of the fundraising chairperson, Pauline Wright masterminded the build and planning. Verdon Timber Group of Barwell where Keith’s’ son Kyle Sperry works were approached and very kindly offered the wood a massive discount - thank you so much.

So it was, on a quite pleasant Saturday morning a group of hands-on people arrived at a field with a pile of wood to begin construction of a quite complex and very large structure. Along with Keith and Kyle were their team of qualified carpenters; Charley Evans, Tom Steane, Samantha King and Kayliegh Watret, who kindly gave up their weekend to help with the build. They all mucked in from the off, sawing, hammering, painting and planning, there was a lot to be done and no guarantee that the nice fine weather would hold.

Forever Savvy would like to thank the following for their help and assistance;

• Verdon timber group of Barwell for the supply for very high-quality wood supplied at a massive discount, this helped A LOT! Nigel Warren head of the group stated “He is happy to support the local community and was glad he could help by supplying all the wood needed at a greatly discounted rate”.

• Travis Perkins who loaned a nail gun and supplied the nails at cost. This was extremely useful for parts of the construction and sped the whole process up considerably.

The four horses now have a magnificent field shelter for use when it gets too hot (not likely!) or too cold and wet.

October 2017