GIVING BACK WITH ANNA RIMAC

Anna Rimac with a student in the roundyard at the RDA Ballina site in Teven.

Inset pic: Anna loves teaching the little ones to ride.

GIVING BACK

The Gift of Love

Anna Rimac has been volunteering for six years with Riding for the Disabled (RDA). She talks to JANE CAMENS about her love for the horses – and the people that visit them.

Anna is an RDA coach and supervisor and having come up through the volunteer ranks she now works with the Ballina and District RDA facility located outside the township of Teven on a 40-hectare property, generously donated by local farmer Brian McNamara.

It was a Saturday morning when I visited her on site. A seven-year-old boy was being led quietly around the covered arena by an assistant coach, while another volunteer walked by his side to ensure he was safe.

She is clearly comfortable around the herd of 10 horses on the property, but when she began she knew very little about equine management, in fact in her own words: “I knew nothing about horses! What brought me to RDA initially was wanting to learn about keeping horses, wanting to support a community enterprise, and learning,” she says.

Mind you, Anna wasn’t entirely a newbie to the horse world, having inherited a fascination and passion for riding from her Croatian horseman father. Her dad was the age she is now – 55 - when he was involved in a car accident that left him disabled. It was then that Anna first heard of RDA. “I suggested it to him, but he refused to go,” she says. “He was terribly depressed. One day I would like to write his story, and it was definitely what led me to my involvement with RDA.”

A volunteer mother and daughter team, Kirby and Shilo, told me that they were there that morning because of Anna. “I’d heard of RDA, but hadn’t done anything about it until Anna posted on Facebook asking for volunteers,” Kirby says. She thought it could be good for Shilo, who was shy and having difficulties at school. Like many before her, Shilo is finding that being around the horses is giving her confidence in other areas of her life.

The story of how Anna came to be where she is today began in the Blue Mountains where she was living, working as a mortgage broker but also volunteering as director of a food co-op. She didn’t entertain the idea of owning a horse until 2012 when she sold her business and, for the first time, she and her husband had enough money to consider buying property. But first, Anna and her daughter did a 10-week riding program at Centennial Glen Stables in the beautiful Kanimbla Valley and in June 2013 the family relocated to the Northern Rivers.

“That’s when I started volunteering with RDA,’ she says. She wanted to learn as much as she could, so she also volunteered at Tassiriki Ranch Beach Riding. “I called myself the ’crash test dummy’,” she says, laughing.

Her horse knowledge has come along in leaps and bounds since then. She has also spent considerable money attending horse clinics and buying tack – even though she still doesn’t own a horse. Nor do she and her husband yet live on their own property. Nevertheless, they’ve found ways to enjoy the sort of life they want in this area. Through her involvement with RDA, she has opportunities to ride after lessons, and she has also initiated a program that enables the volunteers to ride. “I was concerned about the horses only being led around. Now we have riding for the volunteers on Sundays. I can learn lots here and practice my skills, as well as doing things for the organisation,” she says.

Her current favourite mount is a Standardbred, Hudson, the big boy in the RDA’s herd.

But RDA volunteering isn’t just horsing around. Anna has become the branch’s grant application writer, last

year bringing in $70,000 in successful grants to add new infrastructure to the facility. She walks me around the property pointing out new sheds and obstacle courses that were built thanks to these grants. She also instituted the branch’s volunteer induction program. It begins with opening gates, progresses to leading the horses, then on to ‘side walking’. All volunteers are police checked and coaches need to have first aid certificates.

“I feel one of the big issues of our society is a lack of connection,” Anna says. “It can lead people to bad situations. For me, the best part of volunteering at RDA is influencing girls like Shilo. I love seeing everyone develop skills. A lot of the disabled riders have been protected a lot - by necessity, of course, but we gradually help them become more selfsufficient. It’s very satisfying.

The riders are inspiring, the volunteers have a wealth of experience and passion, and the horses provide a nonstop learning opportunity.”

Summing up what she does, Anna says: “I love learning - about horses, people, and myself. I enjoy helping others, being outdoors, and sharing the joy RDA brings.”

You can contact the Ballina RDA here: rdaballina.org.au

Anna finessing technique with an older rider in the arena.

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