Latest / Equine Assisted World with Rupert Isaacson / Building a Culture of Equine Well-Being – With Melissa Connor of Renew TRC | Ep 33 Equine Assisted World

Transcript

Building a Culture of Equine Well-Being – With Melissa Connor of Renew TRC | Ep 33 Equine Assisted World · Equine Assisted World with Rupert Isaacson

• 0:00
  Rupert Isaacson: Welcome to Equine Assisted World.
• 0:02
  I'm your host, Rupert Isaacson, New York Times best selling
• 0:05
  author of The Horse Boy, The Long Ride Home, and The Healing Land.
• 0:08
  Before I jump in with today's guest, I just want to say a huge
• 0:12
  thank you to you, our audience, for helping to make this happen.
• 0:15
  I have a request.
• 0:16
  If you like what we do, please like, subscribe, tell a friend.
• 0:22
  It really helps us get this work done.
• 0:24
  As you might know from my books, I'm an autism dad.
• 0:27
  And over the last 20 years, we've developed several
• 0:31
  equine assisted, neuroscience backed certification programs.
• 0:35
  If you'd like to find out more about them, go to newtrailslearning.
• 0:40
  com.
• 0:41
  So without further ado, let's meet today's guest.
• 0:48
  Welcome back to Equine Assisted World.
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  I've got Melissa Connor here with me from Holland in Michigan where she runs renew.
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  And I was actually just there.
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  It, and I was struck at Renew because there was a higher than usual, higher
• 1:07
  than I'm used to seeing level of equine care going on which I would
• 1:14
  like to see as the general standard.
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  And so I thought I would ask Melissa to come on and tell us how that
• 1:23
  evolved because as a lot of, you know, I, I go around doing a lot of gigs
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  in a lot of therapeutic places and through nobody's fault, you know, the.
• 1:33
  Frequently the state of horses that are being donated, well, maybe that
• 1:37
  is somebody's fault when they're being donated, is you know, they often come in
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  with stiffnesses injuries, arthritis, you know, bangs and wear and tear, but then
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  there often isn't much emphasis on rehab.
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  And of course, as we all know, if a horse is going to be giving wellbeing to a
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  human, it has to have wellbeing to give.
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  And simply being quiet, of course, isn't enough.
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  So really, I was quite struck by this at at Renew.
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  So I thought I'd ask Melissa to come on and talk to us about it because
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  we would have something to learn.
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  So Melissa, thank you for coming on the show.
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  Tell us a little bit about who you are and what you do.
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  Melissa Connor: Sure.
• 2:23
  Thank you Rupert.
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  It was so wonderful to have you at renew just a few weeks ago, and it was an,
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  an honor to introduce you to our horses and our people and, and learn, learn
• 2:36
  the ticking equine integration method.
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  And thank you for your high praise.
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  It's it's, it's, it is rare to be able to have someone kind of come and
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  immerse in our center for a few days long enough to, to notice those things.
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  And so we, we highly value your opinion and your, and your praise.
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  We have 22 horses that live on our farm in Holland, Michigan.
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  We are on a 20 acre property.
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  And we have been at this location since 2020.
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  We purchased the property in 2018 and.
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  Made a plan to build it out.
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  So there's a, a few things that we've prioritized and personally
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  I've tried to prioritize.
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  So we are a therapeutic riding center serving children and
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  adults with disabilities.
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  About half of them with autism.
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  And we are an accredited center with PATH International.
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  And our, our instructors are certified.
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  I have have been a therapeutic writing instructor for 20 plus years and am a
• 3:45
  master instructor with PATH as well.
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  One thing I tried, I've always believed in having had horses
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  since I was a little girl, was to give them the best care possible.
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  And as I was sharing with you, that has evolved really as, as.
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  I am continuing to learn, even though I'm, you know, 50 plus years into life
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  as a horse owner and 20 years into this industry in particular, there's,
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  there's so much to know and learn and continue to learn and explore with
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  horses that I don't feel like there's a formula that just plain works.
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  But a lot of it is listening to the horses, inviting them into the work that
• 4:29
  we do, and then meeting their needs.
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  So I would say, especially over the last decade or so I have really learned
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  from you and a lot of your colleagues.
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  Some of the ones that stand out really are mark Schiller, Josh Nichol, Dr.
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  Steven Peters mark Rashid and, and others about prioritizing the.
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  Horses need friends, horses need freedom, and horses need forage.
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  And focusing on those three F's for their wellbeing and keeping them happy.
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  And then even just in the last six months or so, not even just looking at horses
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  wellbeing as as a scale, but even saying what does it mean for them to thrive?
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  Not just exist.
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  Mm-hmm.
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  Not just live, but how can they be just like we want for our humans, we want
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  our horses to be thriving in this work.
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  So one thing I've really come to believe in deeply is if a horse
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  is not supposed to be a partner in this work that we find out.
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  What their vocation should be and help make that possible for them.
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  So they don't stay, we don't say, this is the horse that showed up, so
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  this is the horse we're gonna use.
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  Even though the horse hates it and the horse isn't thriving or loving
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  their work, then we're gonna move them on to, to something else.
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  So I, I think, I love that all.
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  We have a variety of horses that have different personalities.
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  They're different ages, they're different breeds.
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  But we have really emphasized watching their body language,
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  watching their physical fitness level.
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  We're so excited to dive into the Teke method, just to, to really help them
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  with their conditioning, but we have had conditioning plans that haven't been as
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  intense as what we just learned with you.
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  Definitely every horse gets ridden by a, a competent rider once or
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  twice a week in addition to the therapy work that they're doing.
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  So we've tried to prioritize these things.
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  Some, some lunging, some groundwork.
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  And then we give them, we give them those three F's.
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  We make sure that their friend groups are set, and we have, I have a staff
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  that does that, and we've built out pasture groups and as we were building
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  our property, we put shelters out.
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  We put, we're in Michigan, so we put automatic waterers out.
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  We wanted to be able to leave them outside as much as possible,
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  which might seem ironic because we just built a new barn, but.
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  The barns are really for the humans, not really for the horses.
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  We need a place to bring them into, you know, to get them ready to work
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  with the equipment, to, to groom them and brush them and care for them.
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  So that's really what the barn is for.
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  But of course, it's also just a for them when they need to, to wait.
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  So that's kind of the overview I think of where.
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  Our thinking in terms of our horse care has evolved and then trying to,
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  we're constantly trying to educate the volunteers that come to our
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  center, our participants as well.
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  And then the, the staff just carries it on and we try to prioritize continuing
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  ed for our, our team because it's all, which is why we were able to bring
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  you in just to, to learn from you.
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  But we're open to, we're open to changing things if it doesn't work, not
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  just going to get in doing something because it's easiest for the humans.
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  Try to take in the mindset of what's best for the horse and we'll do
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  that thing In terms of their care,
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  Rupert Isaacson: was it always, so, I mean, you, you grew up
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  in horse country, Virginia.
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  I used to work in Virginia, so Yeah, I, I know it and it's, you know, a horse mecca.
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  I.
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  Many places I've been to in Virginia, actually, the horses are kept really
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  well because they do spend a lot of time outside, even if they're hunters
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  or competition horses or whatever.
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  But I have noticed of course, over the years that in many therapeutic barn horses
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  is what one would call over stalled.
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  And sometimes that can be simply because of the overwhelming
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  traffic that's coming through.
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  As most therapy barn owners know business is almost too good, you know?
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  There are just so many people with the need and it's very
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  hard to turn people away.
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  And this can end up in horses, you know, standing in perhaps more than they should.
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  And the idea of turning horses out in groups, I, I've often seen
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  resistance to that because saying, well, what if, you know, they kick
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  each other, or what if, or what if?
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  And although, you know, I usually say, well, I.
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  They might, but in the same way that kids in the playground might
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  push each other over, but at the same time, usually they don't.
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  And the mental health is important and this is what they need.
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  You know, it's a, it's a balance we have to do.
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  You must have come, you know, 'cause you came up through the sort
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  of ranks of the, of the sort of orthodox therapeutic writing thing.
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  There must have been an evolution with, for, so can you, can you talk
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  to us about where you began and then sort of gradually how it changed?
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  Because I think that would help a lot of listeners who might be in
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  situations where they're thinking, yeah, you know, I, I could see that
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  maybe we could make a change or should make a change, but I'm not entirely
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  sure how we might ch you know, begin to change a, an ingrained system.
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  So talk us through your evolution and I think that will be useful.
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  Melissa Connor: Oh, sure.
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  I started in, well, grew up in Virginia.
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  I grew up actually as a child in Hunter Jumpers and four H.
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  And we boarded our horses for a while, and then my family had a, a small farm of
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  our own where we did a lot of the chores.
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  And so turnout was always something that I grew up with horses kind of out during
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  the day and in their stalls overnight.
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  That was, that was, that's what I remember from my earliest childhood.
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  That was what you did, right?
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  You feed them their green breakfast in the stall, turn 'em
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  out, bring 'em in for dinner.
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  Grain install.
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  And I, I think that that worked for sure.
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  The horses got a good deal of turnout and that really happened.
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  Even I began as a volunteer at a center in Williamsburg, Virginia, and
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  that was really the practice there.
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  But I, I did come in, when I started there in 2005 as a volunteer, I
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  noticed that there were a lot of well-meaning people who didn't have
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  a lot of horse experience, who were drawn to this therapeutic riding world.
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  And maybe some of the decisions that they were making were well,
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  everybody was trying to do the best.
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  Everybody does their best until they know better and then they do better.
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  Mm-hmm.
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  So, the as we didn't have, as, that was a brand new center where
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  I wasn't at the time they didn't, they were building pastures but
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  didn't have a lot of pastures.
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  They were trying to onboard horses, but only had the couple that had
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  been donated, you know, that weren't, weren't necessarily ideal for the job.
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  And, and as I got in there and started helping to mold and shape some of
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  those, I've always come at this where the world of equine assisted services,
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  this world shouldn't get the leftovers from the real equestrian world.
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  And I noticed there was an attitude, from those who were into competitive
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  riding, whether it was dressage or western pleasure or, or hunter jumper, where they
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  thought, oh, this is therapeutic riding.
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  We'll give them our, you know, our, our lame horse who can't
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  show anymore or we'll do this.
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  And personally that always offended me in the sense of,
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  Rupert Isaacson: in so many ways.
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  Yeah, in
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  Melissa Connor: so many ways.
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  But I thought, why That makes no sense that the people that, that are
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  approaching the partnering with horses.
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  For their own wellbeing.
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  What I think the equestrian wheel doesn't know is they were getting some
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  of the benefits from being with horses.
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  The same benefits that we're trying to extend to people with autism and people
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  with cerebral palsy and people with
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  good point with
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  Melissa Connor: brain injury.
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  So it's, it's, they are not more important than the competitive.
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  They are just us.
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  So, I do think I was able, I, I was able to be a part of that center and
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  I became the operations manager and kind of oversaw over the eight years
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  that I was there in Virginia, the onboarding of horses and, and we were
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  able to recruit a team that thought similarly to that, to that where let's
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  do the best we can for this community and that means increase our turnout.
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  Excellent vet care, farrier care.
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  Let's not get somebody's leftover hay that they're given away because
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  it got moldy and they don't want it.
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  Let's invest in quality hay, quality feed even chiropractic
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  work if that makes a difference.
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  And that's what a horse needs.
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  So these things do cost money.
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  They cost, they take time, they take intentionality.
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  So as I was learning the field in those first really eight years or so at the
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  center in Virginia, really prioritizing without horses, we, we can't do our work.
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  So we, they have to be a priority.
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  They have to be invested in.
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  And so then I moved to Michigan in 2013.
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  Got to know, renew, which was a small center at the time, and very small budget
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  as well, working out of a boarding barn.
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  And it was very similar.
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  I remember the, my first trip to the tech shop, local tech shop here
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  in the western side of Michigan.
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  I went with a friend and we were looking at some of their consigned saddles, and I
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  noticed several of them had broken trees.
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  And they had a saddle fitter on staff and I think I said something to them like, I'm
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  pretty sure the tree on this one's broken.
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  You might wanna consider something.
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  She went, oh, well, we'll pass it on to a therapeutic riding center.
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  And I just remember being so upset I had to like, leave the tack shop because
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  I said, oh, please don't do that.
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  And then was just so emotional I couldn't you know, I struggled to be able to
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  say why, and I thought we have to start changing some attitudes and mm-hmm.
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  Like, this is, it's still very much there, there's still this thought
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  of, of if it's a therapeutic writing center, if it's a nonprofit well
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  you must be hurting for money.
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  So they should be grateful to get our saddle with a broken tree.
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  Or they should be grateful to get our three-legged horse that, you know,
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  isn't sounding, is that actually
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  Rupert Isaacson: gonna cost a fortune in Becca?
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  Melissa Connor: So I think just kind of flipping the whole thing
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  over and saying, no, we need.
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  As I know you, we learned from you when you came.
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  Like, our horses need to be conditioned.
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  We owe it to them to be in top physical shape, top mental shape.
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  Our equipment needs to be that and so much more because of what we're doing
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  with our equipment and with our horses.
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  And so the care of the horses really has always, for me been a
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  priority, but it's been a, a long, slow journey and that I'm still on
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  of learning and sharing kind of this
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  Rupert Isaacson: stuff.
• 16:09
  Yeah.
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  One, I don't know if you, if you're at this point, I, I, I reached a point
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  in Texas, 'cause you know, people wanted to donate horses all the time
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  and we took some, but and, but we took ones that they didn't have to be.
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  Always sound because as you know, a lot of our work can be done on the ground too.
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  So if a horse couldn't be ridden or had, you know, kissing spine or something,
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  but had this wonderful attitude and this wonderful nature, we just rehab
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  them as horses that you could work in hand with, with an adult population
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  perhaps that wasn't going to ride.
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  But they could still be in their top amazing shape within those parameters
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  or something like that, you know?
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  Or we could have horses that, you know, we knew could only carry a certain weight.
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  Okay.
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  We, they were only get, but they could still be in their top shape.
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  But mostly actually I would buy, buy or breed my own horses because as you
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  say these horses are no less athletes than horses in the competition world.
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  And of course, all my horses did do everything anyway, and still do they
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  crossed the line between those worlds.
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  Okay.
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  But the.
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  The idea that somebody might have, I always thought was so strange
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  that it's basically I, competition rider have messed this horse up.
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  You know, he's now injured.
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  You know, they say, oh, we don't know how it happened.
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  And like, well, yeah, you do.
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  There was a time when he wasn't lame and there was a time when he was
• 17:37
  and do the best of what you were doing and you probably can, you
• 17:41
  know, come out with an answer of that's probably where it happens.
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  He was probably overstressed or overstressed.
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  Now, it's not always like that.
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  Of course some horses injure themselves in the field and whatever, but you
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  know, and I know that the vast majority of competition horses get broken.
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  Yes.
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  And that doesn't mean they're not rehab.
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  But the idea that, and of course that's what the whole tech in program is, but.
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  The idea that someone would say, oh, well, now that I have broken this
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  horse, here's what I'm gonna do.
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  I'm gonna make you feel like you're, I'm doing you a favor and I'm going to sort
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  of lie to myself that I'm doing you a favor by giving you a horse that is going
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  to require considerable vet care if he's going to, and, and rehab, skilled rehab.
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  If he's going to go on and do anything, rather than just retire in the field
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  at home, which I could do, but I don't really wanna feed that horse, even
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  though I love this horse so much.
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  That's what they always say.
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  And I, you know, and he's given so much and he deserves and blah, blah.
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  I said, well, if he deserves so much, why don't you keep him?
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  Right?
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  You know?
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  Rupert Isaacson: And I remember the last person who tried to give me a
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  horse, like, this is actually quite, quite a, a, a well known event.
• 18:48
  And I, I said to her, you know, then if the horse is, if you love this
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  horse, like you say you love your this horse, keep him, you've got fields.
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  You know?
• 18:57
  Yeah.
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  Rupert Isaacson: And then it's like, well, you know, I don't really wanna feed him.
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  It's like, you know, you want me to feed him?
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  So what, so, and you want me to take on the Vet Cat and you want, while I'm
• 19:05
  also a nonprofit, while I'm also needing to prioritize spending on serving the
• 19:12
  populations we serve, which by the way, could be one of your relatives, Mr.
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  Or miss horse owner that's trying to palm this, you know, broken horse off on me,
• 19:21
  right?
• 19:21
  Rupert Isaacson: So therefore, if I take this horse, you have to help
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  maintain him because you'd have to do it anyway if they were at home.
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  So what's the difference?
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  Just this way they're going to have more care.
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  And I had, have actually had some people go, you, you know
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  what, actually, fair enough.
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  And of course, plenty of others who say thanks, but no thanks.
• 19:41
  Have you experimented with that at all?
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  When people want to donate because I, I think this is
• 19:47
  something a lot of therapeutic program directors can relate to.
• 19:52
  Melissa Connor: Absolutely.
• 19:53
  We, I.
• 19:55
  It's always a fine line though, walking with, dealing with horse owners.
• 19:59
  Rupert Isaacson: So I hadn't noticed yet, myself included.
• 20:03
  Probably
• 20:07
  Melissa Connor: it.
• 20:07
  So, we own about half of our herd and the other half are what we call
• 20:12
  here in the states, a free lease.
• 20:14
  Okay.
• 20:14
  I know our accountant hates that term because a lease in the states,
• 20:18
  it implies money is exchanged when money is not exchanged.
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  Mm-hmm.
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  And a free lease, it's a, we cover the cost of.
• 20:25
  Of daily care.
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  And in order to have the horse in the program, but the, we cap put a cap
• 20:33
  on the vet, the vet care, that would be considered normal or standard,
• 20:38
  what we would do, and then if the owner wants above and beyond that
• 20:42
  would be what they would pay for.
• 20:43
  So we have written agreements we do a trial period, we do a 60 day trial.
• 20:49
  We can extend it before we accept a horse.
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  If we're accepting a horse for donation, usually it's a circumstance
• 20:58
  where the owner can't, they're paying board somewhere, right?
• 21:03
  And they usually don't have another option,
• 21:06
  right?
• 21:06
  Melissa Connor: Not always the case, but usually they don't have another option.
• 21:10
  Now, what has happened time and time again is we have a free lease agreement
• 21:15
  with a horse where the horse is in our program for a few years, and then.
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  Normal course of aging, they develop a condition or they, or a
• 21:25
  lameness that we can't overcome.
• 21:27
  Laminitis, heart murmur, something where we stay in relationship with the
• 21:33
  owner and then we say, are you like our agreement was that you would take the
• 21:38
  horse back, you know, at this point.
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  And then they say, oh, it's been five years.
• 21:44
  My life has changed.
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  I can't take the horse back.
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  Can you retire them, rehome them, and then it, it, we, they assume that it's
• 21:53
  easy for us to function as a retirement or even a rescue, which we aren't.
• 21:58
  So it's a, it's that fine line.
• 22:00
  So I've tried to make it a priority to, to know our community well,
• 22:06
  just the horse people in our area.
• 22:08
  Mm-hmm.
• 22:08
  So we have been able to rehome some horses just locally too, to
• 22:13
  local farms or people who are.
• 22:17
  Stakeholders with us, whether they're volunteers or donors or they have
• 22:21
  those open fields and they're willing to, to take, take somebody on.
• 22:25
  But it is interesting how the person that says, I was laughing when you said, oh,
• 22:29
  I love them so much and I want them back.
• 22:32
  That I just had this exact conversation with a, a person who said that five years
• 22:37
  ago when we got the horse, I love them.
• 22:38
  I want them back.
• 22:40
  And I called her about a month ago and said, we're starting to make a plan
• 22:43
  for retiring your horse, and we will.
• 22:45
  And she said, oh, I'm, I can't take him.
• 22:48
  You know, and, and she said, I can't take him.
• 22:51
  You have my pre permission to euthanize.
• 22:53
  Well, we said, well, we're not, they.
• 22:55
  I mean, that's not what we are talking about right now.
• 22:59
  Yeah.
• 22:59
  Melissa Connor: So this particular horse is dealing with Laminitis
• 23:02
  and a, and a heart murmur that is escalating, but he's not at the end.
• 23:09
  Yeah.
• 23:09
  He's just, we were just calling to kind of start the.
• 23:13
  Conversation that it's moving in this direction.
• 23:17
  So it, it does get tricky.
• 23:20
  It really does.
• 23:21
  And that, that's where having the ground programs and the equine assisted
• 23:27
  learning programs and the things where the horse can still serve in that role.
• 23:32
  Yeah.
• 23:33
  Melissa Connor: It's, we can just at our, because we are on 20 acres and we right
• 23:38
  now can accommodate about 24 horses.
• 23:41
  So we serve a lot of people every week.
• 23:44
  So I have try to vary the workload as we assign the work, and so we
• 23:49
  just can only have so many horses in, in that unmounted category.
• 23:53
  So, absolutely.
• 23:54
  Rupert Isaacson: No, absolutely.
• 23:54
  And I think, I think everyone can relate to this.
• 23:56
  You know, I, I have a funny story.
• 23:58
  Sometimes it goes the other way.
• 24:00
  I remember being donated a, a very nice touch, warm blood who the person couldn't.
• 24:06
  Sustain anymore.
• 24:08
  And he was a fabulous horse in every way.
• 24:11
  And so of course we kept his training advancing while he was serving,
• 24:17
  you know, all of the autistic kids.
• 24:19
  So he ended up with a nice massage and nice changes and the ex owner
• 24:24
  came and saw it and wanted him back.
• 24:27
  And and we hadn't done the paperwork as well as we should
• 24:31
  have, and we had to let him go back.
• 24:33
  And he was a horse that we were really relying upon at that point.
• 24:36
  Oh, that
• 24:37
  Rupert Isaacson: said, in retrospect I can see that the mental health of that person
• 24:43
  would have been very negatively impacted.
• 24:46
  I think it had already been negatively impacted at the time
• 24:49
  where she let him go by other things.
• 24:51
  And we sort of went in a bit of a huddle, you know, at Horse point and
• 24:56
  went, well, it's not really fair, but.
• 25:00
  Okay.
• 25:01
  Because clearly it's going to have a very negative impact if we don't let him go.
• 25:06
  But how are we gonna replace him?
• 25:08
  Right?
• 25:09
  So I then went and bought a very nice Spanish horse instead who
• 25:12
  had a lot of the same qualities.
• 25:15
  It's, it's something I think, which really, if listeners are coming into
• 25:23
  the early stages of their career with this, you really, really, really do need
• 25:27
  to make sure your paperwork is pretty cast iron and people like Melissa, I
• 25:32
  think you'd be up for mentoring people, you know, in this kind of thing.
• 25:37
  Because yeah, one can get
• 25:39
  Melissa Connor: Absolutely.
• 25:40
  Yeah.
• 25:41
  Rupert Isaacson: And
• 25:42
  Melissa Connor: I, as, as you know, Rupert, I have skin in the
• 25:45
  game in that, two of my horses are free leased to my own program.
• 25:49
  So I am a, even though I'm the executive director, I'm a horse
• 25:53
  owner, and so I also wear that hat.
• 25:56
  Yeah.
• 25:56
  I've signed the same agreements and and I do, I love that you said that,
• 26:01
  you know, you improve the horse.
• 26:03
  I love that mentality.
• 26:05
  I would hope that our horse owners and the horses unless there's, you know.
• 26:11
  Age aging and wear and tear that maybe can't be rehabbed at a point.
• 26:16
  But the idea is that we watch their body scores all the time.
• 26:20
  We monitor their workloads constantly.
• 26:24
  We ma try to make sure the horses in that happy and thriving.
• 26:28
  So the horse owners generally stay happy with us if they, you
• 26:33
  know, when they come and visit.
• 26:34
  And we make a point.
• 26:35
  And it does take time and intentionality.
• 26:38
  That's what a lot of people in this world don't have, but to
• 26:41
  maintain those relationships.
• 26:43
  Rupert Isaacson: Right.
• 26:44
  And also to do that work.
• 26:45
  So that was actually intriguing to me because as you know, when people are
• 26:49
  learning the Tke program, for example, one of the draws about it is that it
• 26:53
  helps to end the time conflict between how on earth am I going to condition
• 26:59
  these horses When I'm overwhelmed with a number of clients I've got,
• 27:01
  and I'm sure staffed Dan, Dan, Dan.
• 27:03
  Mm-hmm.
• 27:03
  And of course with Taki we're saying, okay, you do it all at the same time.
• 27:06
  The lunging session, the in hand session, the long raining session is
• 27:09
  while you are serving your client.
• 27:11
  And therefore these problems go away.
• 27:13
  And then we also have the crazy time thing, so the horses get to go
• 27:17
  nuts and express themselves as well.
• 27:19
  Which, but that can also be a client session, you know, and there's
• 27:22
  lots we can learn in that fine.
• 27:24
  But of course not.
• 27:26
  That took even us and we're, you know, seasoned horse people, it took us a
• 27:29
  while to come up with that formula.
• 27:31
  And we only came up with that formula because we had found
• 27:33
  ourselves in that time crunch and sort of had a little panic.
• 27:36
  And then them, the penny dropped, but Hold on, hold on, hold on.
• 27:39
  A lot of our clients can actually.
• 27:41
  Easily do this work and it would be really empowering.
• 27:44
  Why don't we, and of course it took off.
• 27:46
  When I came to your barn a few weeks ago and you pulled, there were three
• 27:50
  geldings that you pulled out and they all displayed these like giant top lines.
• 27:58
  And this is my bug always in therapeutic riding.
• 28:01
  It's like, where's the top line?
• 28:03
  And one of the reasons I'm so anal about it obviously is because in horse boy
• 28:07
  method, we ride with a child in front.
• 28:10
  So we are having to think about that small amount of extra weight.
• 28:16
  Usually these are small children, it's minimal.
• 28:17
  But nonetheless, you know, we, we, we really need to think about this.
• 28:20
  And because we have to put horses into collection for
• 28:23
  the oxytocin effect to happen.
• 28:25
  We have to do a lot of training, which involves a lot of top line.
• 28:28
  Okay, fine.
• 28:29
  One of the things which I often notice in the therapeutic world is lack of top line.
• 28:34
  And it, I won't say it doesn't bother me because that's where you sit.
• 28:39
  And it, particularly if the horse is older and they usually
• 28:42
  are to neglect, the top line is,
• 28:48
  I don't wanna say negligent, but it's hard to find another word
• 28:52
  because that's where the client sits.
• 28:55
  And the client is not going to sit well, they often cannot sit.
• 28:59
  Well, that's the whole point, is that we're giving them a horse
• 29:02
  which can accommodate their needs, but it means we have to be extra
• 29:07
  vigilant about the horse's needs.
• 29:08
  So I'm usually going like a top line.
• 29:13
  You pull out these three horses, I'm like.
• 29:19
  Saying, you know, damn, in the southern way, where, where you, you put a
• 29:23
  y in the middle dam, it was like, wow, I'm not used to seeing that.
• 29:28
  And I'm like, okay, what's she doing?
• 29:32
  So for listeners, these, these three ings came out and they
• 29:35
  were three distinct breeds.
• 29:37
  One was a apart Farian, one was an Irish Old Irish draft.
• 29:41
  Gorgeous.
• 29:41
  Yeah.
• 29:41
  And the other was an Anglo Norman, I think.
• 29:45
  Melissa Connor: A Spanish Norman.
• 29:45
  Spanish Norman.
• 29:46
  Rupert Isaacson: Right.
• 29:46
  And they just came out glowing with attitude and fun and spice and top line.
• 29:56
  And it was.
• 29:57
  I was like, okay, what are you doing?
• 29:59
  And this is before I've touched these horses, by the way, listeners, I cannot
• 30:02
  claim any, we were there to teach em, but I was like, okay, I dunno why I need
• 30:06
  to go to teach these people because, you know, clearly I'm doing fine.
• 30:09
  So, so talk us through what went into the building of those
• 30:13
  top lines as therapy horses.
• 30:15
  I think that would be something really useful for listeners.
• 30:19
  Melissa Connor: Great question.
• 30:20
  So I, I have always thought, and even from early days in this, in this
• 30:26
  work that the horses need for their mental and physical wellbeing to be
• 30:32
  worked correctly under saddle in a discipline that they were familiar with.
• 30:38
  So in, in the cases of those three like Will, he's the Irish draft,
• 30:43
  he was an inventor who developed a roar, couldn't compete anymore.
• 30:48
  His, his owner graciously thought of us, reached out, was afraid he was too big.
• 30:54
  You know, we love him.
• 30:55
  He's a goofball, he's powerful.
• 30:57
  He's a goofball.
• 30:58
  He really shines in our veterans program.
• 31:02
  Our veterans are really drawn to him, you know, big, big, powerful horse.
• 31:06
  Mm-hmm.
• 31:06
  But he gets at, I would say two, one or two conditioning rides a week by my
• 31:15
  daughter is actually his exercise rider, but just, she knows what she's doing.
• 31:19
  She knows the classical dressage.
• 31:21
  She knows how to get him into self carriage.
• 31:25
  And so that keeps him strong.
• 31:27
  That keeps his back strong.
• 31:29
  Scout is our 12-year-old, f Friesian cross crossed with a paint.
• 31:34
  So he's he's stunning people.
• 31:36
  Yeah, he's gorgeous.
• 31:37
  Yeah.
• 31:38
  He's, he that's almost
• 31:39
  Rupert Isaacson: everyone wants, is like, I want that.
• 31:41
  Melissa Connor: I know.
• 31:42
  He's flashy.
• 31:43
  He's very flashy.
• 31:44
  And he same thing.
• 31:46
  We have one of our staff members who is committed to working with him weekly.
• 31:51
  So, and then the same with Mick.
• 31:53
  Mick is the Spanish.
• 31:54
  Norman just came in in December, but had a dressage background.
• 31:58
  He's in his early twenties.
• 31:59
  He looks the same as Scout or Will who are in their early teens.
• 32:04
  But he had a dressage background and the family was moving on.
• 32:11
  They were actually moving south and he was donated to us.
• 32:14
  We happily accepted him because he came in just not only mentally fit, but physically
• 32:20
  fit, but really we have developed, conditioning program with riding.
• 32:27
  We do, we have a trainer.
• 32:28
  We have a local trainer who comes over three Fridays a month and, and gives
• 32:34
  lessons to our staff or our volunteers who are, are our ride conditioning
• 32:39
  riders to help everybody work on.
• 32:44
  With their horse.
• 32:46
  I love having outside eyes on her horse.
• 32:48
  She's an accomplished trainer.
• 32:50
  It's Erica Peterson is her name, and she, I think she likes coming to our barn too,
• 32:57
  because we're not a competition barn.
• 32:58
  That's what she's used to training.
• 32:59
  She travels around and goes to competition barns and she just enjoys
• 33:03
  coming to us because our goal is how can we help our horses be better?
• 33:07
  How can we help them stay physically fit?
• 33:09
  How can we improve their flexibility, their balance, their strength?
• 33:14
  So, and we just do this in the context of, of, you know, a classical dressage lesson.
• 33:20
  I say classical dressage, but you know, the, they could be
• 33:23
  riding an all-purpose saddle or a western saddle or whatever, right?
• 33:26
  It's the, it's those same.
• 33:28
  Components.
• 33:29
  So that we've been doing that for a couple of years, that has really helped to keep
• 33:36
  our, our crew of instructors who are our staff and our volunteers who help us
• 33:41
  condition the horses help keep them sharp.
• 33:44
  It, it keeps their.
• 33:47
  Riding skills sharp, but of course everybody comes in with a baseline.
• 33:52
  There.
• 33:52
  So this is, we ex the people who we have approved to work with our horses, we make
• 33:59
  sure that they know what they're doing.
• 34:01
  We don't, we have, believe me, we get asked all the
• 34:03
  time, can I ride your horses?
• 34:04
  Can I ride your horses?
• 34:05
  No, we don't just let anybody ride our horses for conditioning.
• 34:09
  They have to be approved.
• 34:11
  So, we have a, we have a method of doing that and then we just make that
• 34:15
  a priority so the horses get that work.
• 34:19
  That's why I'm so excited to add, to keen into what we're already doing, to just
• 34:23
  add the benefit, the groundwork, right?
• 34:25
  Rupert Isaacson: Well, right, because you know, when, when one is relying upon
• 34:28
  riding, there are some issues there.
• 34:32
  One is the rider has to be competent to work a horse over the back, obviously.
• 34:36
  So.
• 34:37
  Most riders dunno how to do that.
• 34:39
  The riders that do know how to do that may or may not be in your program.
• 34:43
  Right.
• 34:44
  And then of course, it, it, it, it's whether or not the horse can be ridden.
• 34:47
  And it also, if, if we're relying upon riding, then even if you have those
• 34:53
  riders in your program, as you, as you've pointed out, only a very small
• 34:56
  number of your personnel can do that.
• 34:58
  Whereas with the lunging and the long reigning, obviously we
• 35:01
  can now get everybody doing it.
• 35:03
  Um Right.
• 35:03
  Regardless of their equestrian skill, but Right.
• 35:07
  If you're in the equine assisted field, or if you're considering
• 35:10
  a career in the equine assisted field, you might want to consider
• 35:14
  taking one of our three neuroscience backed equine assisted programs.
• 35:18
  Horseboy method, now established for 20 years, is the original
• 35:24
  Equine assisted program specifically designed for autism, mentored by and
• 35:31
  developed in conjunction with Dr.
• 35:33
  Temple Grandin and many other neuroscientists.
• 35:36
  We work in the saddle with younger children.
• 35:40
  Helping them create oxytocin in their bodies and neuroplasticity in the brain.
• 35:46
  It works incredibly well.
• 35:47
  It's now in about 40 countries.
• 35:50
  Check it out.
• 35:51
  If you're working without horses, you might want to look at movement
• 35:55
  method, which gets a very, very similar effect, but can also be
• 35:59
  applied in schools, in homes.
• 36:01
  If you're working with families, you can give them really tangible exercises to do
• 36:06
  at home that will create neuroplasticity.
• 36:09
  when they're not with you.
• 36:10
  Finally, we have taquine equine integration.
• 36:14
  If you know anything about our programs, you know that we need a
• 36:17
  really high standard of horsemanship in order to create the oxytocin
• 36:21
  in the body of the person that we're working with, child or adult.
• 36:25
  So, this means we need to train a horse in collection, but this
• 36:29
  also has a really beneficial effect on the horse's well being.
• 36:33
  And it also ends your time conflict, where you're wondering, oh my gosh, how
• 36:38
  am I going to condition my horses and maintain them and give them what they
• 36:41
  need, as well as Serving my clients.
• 36:44
  Takine equine integration aimed at a more adult client base
• 36:49
  absolutely gives you this.
• 36:51
  That brings me actually to another question, which is
• 36:53
  I know how busy you are.
• 36:55
  Finding the time to get the horses ridden over the back in this way is not easy.
• 37:01
  How do you manage that time?
• 37:04
  Melissa Connor: That's, that's another great question.
• 37:05
  And we really blocked out one morning a week.
• 37:08
  So we don't do programming on Friday mornings.
• 37:12
  That's where it, that's where it landed for us.
• 37:15
  That's our conditioning time.
• 37:16
  And so we just have it blocked out on our schedule.
• 37:20
  We don't pro, we don't provide services.
• 37:23
  Okay.
• 37:23
  Now, every now and then, there's a special thing where we have to shift.
• 37:27
  That's why I say it's about three Fridays a month that, that, that actually happens.
• 37:32
  And then those, we assign person to horse.
• 37:35
  So, you know, I'm assigned a horse, various people are assigned a horse.
• 37:40
  If we can't get to that horse that week, like travel meetings.
• 37:45
  It's our responsibility to assign, to get, make sure somebody else
• 37:50
  works the horse so that they get it.
• 37:52
  We have a, we have a checklist, you know, we have a Google document.
• 37:56
  We all go in and write notes.
• 37:57
  You know, if somebody didn't get a canner lead or if somebody was stiff in
• 38:02
  one direction, we make notes on that.
• 38:04
  And all of us who are conditioners can see what we're doing with with our
• 38:09
  horses and with each other's horses and make suggestions and help each other.
• 38:14
  But like you said, it is, there's a baseline of riding ability and that
• 38:18
  that is something that we have struggled with, but we also want to develop and,
• 38:23
  Rupert Isaacson: well, that, that's the question.
• 38:25
  Again, most places don't have access to those riders.
• 38:29
  How did you okay.
• 38:31
  Your daughter's part of the program granted, but nonetheless, I mean,
• 38:35
  you're lucky that she enjoys riding.
• 38:38
  But.
• 38:40
  Even with that with that many horses, it's, it's very difficult to find
• 38:43
  that number of people anywhere who have the ability, you know, if one's
• 38:48
  lucky, if one finds one or two, you know, let alone five or six.
• 38:51
  So how do you, how do you find those good riders and bring them into your program?
• 38:58
  Melissa Connor: Such a good question.
• 38:59
  I wish I, I wish I knew the answer other than, here's, I'll give you my best
• 39:04
  answer, which is, I think because we and as the leader of the organization,
• 39:08
  I've tried to set it as a priority.
• 39:11
  I think we set the bar where we want the bar to be and then wait
• 39:15
  for people to come meet us there.
• 39:18
  Mm-hmm.
• 39:19
  So it's not a perfect system.
• 39:20
  Even, even now when I tell you we have, we have, 22 horses.
• 39:23
  Well, I'll take out the minis, you know, 'cause we don't ride the minis,
• 39:27
  but, so say we have 18 horses that need to get conditioned every week.
• 39:31
  I think we have 12 approved riders currently.
• 39:34
  That's a lot.
• 39:35
  Rupert Isaacson: I mean, I think a lot of places would dream of
• 39:38
  having that many good riders.
• 39:39
  Yeah.
• 39:39
  Melissa Connor: Yeah.
• 39:40
  We have we have nine instructors, which is also a high number of instructors.
• 39:46
  Not saying every instructor is in a different spot in their career.
• 39:50
  Mm.
• 39:50
  But
• 39:50
  Melissa Connor: every instructor has come in with an equestrian background.
• 39:54
  So they've, we always encourage them.
• 39:57
  If people come to me and say, I wanna be an instructor, I usually
• 40:00
  say, go take writing lessons.
• 40:02
  Go like, what is your background?
• 40:04
  Because you, you need five plus years of writing instruction with a good trainer.
• 40:11
  Usually at another barn riding different horses, not, not
• 40:14
  starting on our therapy horses.
• 40:16
  Yeah.
• 40:16
  And get your base level of skills so that you know what that feel is.
• 40:22
  You understand what balance is.
• 40:25
  They understand how the horse moves they understand the weight shifts that happen,
• 40:30
  the bending that needs to happen, that crossing over, bearing weight on that
• 40:35
  inside hind, all the things that, that you bring, you brought to us in groundwork.
• 40:42
  The hope is that our, our conditioning riders have that, and then we,
• 40:47
  they're, they start as volunteers.
• 40:49
  I think every person that we've hired on our staff maybe with one exception
• 40:53
  because she came from outta state, but had started with us as a volunteer and we get
• 40:57
  to know them and we see their work ethic.
• 40:59
  We see their abilities and then their, and then their, over time have been hired.
• 41:04
  We have we have a staff of 13 right now.
• 41:09
  Not everybody is a rider and that's completely fine.
• 41:12
  But they participate in the program or are responsible for different parts of
• 41:16
  the program in, in some way or another.
• 41:17
  And then that's circle gets bigger with that handful of volunteers that we find.
• 41:23
  So I, I have I'll give you an example of a good friend of mine.
• 41:27
  I met her soon after I, I moved here to this area.
• 41:31
  But she was a trainer.
• 41:33
  She was a trainer.
• 41:34
  She's now doing something else, working in schools, actually in a autism classroom.
• 41:38
  But she exercises our horses.
• 41:41
  In fact, she exercises Mick, that Spanish Norman, but.
• 41:45
  She was a person hanging out with an, she's an incredible rider,
• 41:49
  understands all of those things, but doesn't currently own a horse
• 41:53
  had kind of moved out of that world.
• 41:54
  And so the gift of her coming back into our program and she can
• 41:59
  be a conditioning rider for us.
• 42:00
  Like there's, you just gotta find those people and it's not easy, but
• 42:05
  I think when we set the bar and build those relationships, it, it will come.
• 42:10
  Rupert Isaacson: It, there's also, sometimes it can be a matter of geography.
• 42:13
  I've been traveling to that Grand Rapids, Michigan area for a couple
• 42:16
  of years now, and I've been, first I was surprised and I'm very, in a very
• 42:21
  pleasant way by the kind of level of education of a lot of riders in that area.
• 42:27
  It was very interesting to me.
• 42:28
  You know, we both know, for example Leanna tank who, which also just
• 42:33
  done a podcast with who came and obviously was part of this training.
• 42:36
  She's in Grand Rapids and.
• 42:39
  She in her barn.
• 42:40
  There's a very high level of knowledge there.
• 42:41
  And I was, you know, you expect these things in places like Northern
• 42:44
  Virginia or certain parts of the Carolinas or around the Denver area,
• 42:49
  you know, places that are known hubs.
• 42:52
  Do you think that, is Western Michigan just a particularly good
• 42:55
  hub, or do you have a particularly good way of just attracting these
• 43:00
  people and, and finding them?
• 43:02
  Because I've gotta admit, when I was in Texas, it was, it was tough to find.
• 43:08
  Melissa Connor: Hmm.
• 43:08
  I, I do think there's, there, there probably is a, something with a geography.
• 43:13
  I.
• 43:14
  And these hubs, it, it, it, this, this part where I am, and of course
• 43:20
  I grew up riding Hunter jumpers as an adult, have ridden dressage.
• 43:24
  There are a lot of dressage trainers in our area, so now they're not all of the
• 43:29
  same caliber because again, anybody can call themselves a dressage trainer, start
• 43:34
  a website, throw it out there, right?
• 43:36
  Yes.
• 43:36
  Melissa Connor: So I, I have noticed just as I've gotten to know
• 43:41
  people, that there's people that I resonate with more than others.
• 43:45
  And so I think trying to again, it goes, kind of goes back to building
• 43:52
  those relationships, but Right.
• 43:54
  Letting them know what we're looking for.
• 43:56
  Even the, the trainers in our area, but maybe because we're
• 44:00
  in a, a higher dressage area in this greater Grand Rapids area.
• 44:05
  There is a lot, there are a lot of people, there's a lot of
• 44:08
  trail riders in our area too.
• 44:10
  And, and I have met, and even in the process of trying to mentor people
• 44:16
  in therapeutic riding sometimes I'm surprised people who say they're lifelong
• 44:21
  riders or I've been riding for 40 years and they don't know how to post
• 44:25
  the trot, you know, or they don't know how, because they hop on their horse
• 44:29
  in their backyard and it'll go off on a 10 mile trail ride through the woods
• 44:33
  and come back and they didn't fall off.
• 44:35
  So that was, that was, that's the extent of it.
• 44:38
  So there's, there's still a range, but I, I do think there is an emphasis
• 44:43
  on classical dressage in our area.
• 44:45
  And I do think that that helps that there, that trickle down effect
• 44:48
  of just understanding the movement of the horse, understanding the
• 44:52
  muscular development and how they, I.
• 44:55
  Power themselves.
• 44:56
  And all of that feeds into what we're talking about, having that nice top
• 45:02
  line, having happy horses and horses that are able to then do this work.
• 45:07
  But I try to prioritize knowing people because those are the
• 45:12
  pipelines for the horse kinds of horses we want in our program.
• 45:16
  And so people need to trust you.
• 45:19
  People need to know about renew.
• 45:22
  People need to know who we are.
• 45:23
  People need to know about our high standard of care and our conditioning.
• 45:27
  And so these are conversations we try to have.
• 45:31
  I'm always surprised when they seem surprised by those things.
• 45:35
  Yeah.
• 45:35
  I just think they're not educated about our equine assisted world.
• 45:40
  So true.
• 45:41
  Rupert Isaacson: Which is getting better, but we all, I think, can
• 45:44
  admit that, we are bringing it up from a place where perhaps it wasn't
• 45:49
  as good as it could have been.
• 45:52
  Right?
• 45:52
  But it gets better year by year.
• 45:53
  The, and I can picture a lot of listeners now scribbling down, recruit
• 45:58
  my writers from Grand Rapids era.
• 46:00
  You know, Melissa's there two years now.
• 46:03
  I, I just don't seem to be able to find the riders I used to be able
• 46:05
  to feel to Texas to work here.
• 46:08
  Melissa Connor: No, I'll tell, I'll tell you something else about this area.
• 46:10
  People love this part of the country and they don't leave.
• 46:15
  Maybe they'll leave for winter, you know, the, the snowbirds go south.
• 46:18
  Yeah.
• 46:19
  But there is when I moved here from Virginia and, and
• 46:23
  there's not a lot of turnover.
• 46:25
  People tend, once they live here, tend to stay here.
• 46:29
  And it's a, it's a, it's a great place.
• 46:31
  Just that, you know, we have the lake, we have the lake shore.
• 46:33
  Mm-hmm.
• 46:34
  There's land I, I might have shared with you, I love the area where I live
• 46:39
  because I'm 10 minutes from absolutely everything that I need in my life.
• 46:42
  A 10 minute drive.
• 46:43
  So I don't really have to, you know, it's not a stressful
• 46:47
  place to live in that sense.
• 46:49
  And there's plenty of open farmland still around for people
• 46:52
  who look looking for horse farms.
• 46:53
  So
• 46:54
  Rupert Isaacson: it's very true.
• 46:55
  It's very true in the real estate prices are attractive folks.
• 46:58
  Mm-hmm.
• 46:58
  As is the landscape.
• 46:59
  But you do have to contend with February.
• 47:01
  Yes.
• 47:02
  Yeah.
• 47:03
  Okay, so down to the horse welfare aspect too.
• 47:06
  One of the other things that really struck me when I came to you was the horses
• 47:10
  live out, as you say, you, you had built this very beautiful barn which smelled
• 47:14
  great, of new pine wood and everything.
• 47:16
  And had no horses in it because the horses were all outside and that was great.
• 47:20
  You also grew up though with horses being stalled and stable.
• 47:23
  So at what point did you begin to make that shift?
• 47:26
  And, and because it's, it's quite a big one to make.
• 47:29
  I think a lot of us grew up with horses being stalled.
• 47:33
  It was a hard habit to break, you know, I, I broke it myself at a certain
• 47:36
  point, but I do remember a certain amount of internal resistance again.
• 47:40
  But it's quite nice to have the horse in the, but then I just saw how happy my
• 47:45
  horses were when they were just in that perma herd and I was like, okay, fine.
• 47:48
  They're gonna be out.
• 47:49
  Yeah.
• 47:49
  Rupert Isaacson: But so talk us through how that evolved.
• 47:53
  'Cause you don't see it in a lot of therapeutic places.
• 47:57
  Melissa Connor: Really, I feel like I discovered it in a, in a sense by
• 48:01
  accident because like I said, I moved here from Virginia, used to having horses
• 48:07
  stalled at night, or at least shelter.
• 48:09
  I had, I had my horses at home and they were in overnight and out during the
• 48:14
  day, which is nice to do in Virginia.
• 48:17
  We would reverse the turnout in the hot, hot, hot, humid summer, you know,
• 48:21
  where they're out overnight and in under fans during the day in Michigan.
• 48:26
  It's, it, we didn't reverse the turnout really just kind of had 'em.
• 48:31
  So I moved here with that mentality.
• 48:33
  I think it happened over time and sort of out of necessity as.
• 48:38
  Renew was originally located, literally across the street from where I live.
• 48:44
  There's a boarding barn across the street.
• 48:45
  We were working, we were had horses boarded there.
• 48:49
  I had horses at home.
• 48:50
  I would walk them across the street to go to work and, and
• 48:53
  be part of the, the program.
• 48:56
  And we had a limited number of stalls.
• 48:59
  And I, we had an agreement with after I'd been here a year or
• 49:03
  two, we made an agreement with the property owners to lease three acres.
• 49:08
  And we really kind of had our own pasture.
• 49:11
  And we had a small covered arena where we could do lessons and we threw
• 49:16
  up a couple of stalls over there.
• 49:19
  Our program was growing so rapidly we had more.
• 49:23
  Horses and more people to serve than we had room for.
• 49:27
  Hmm.
• 49:27
  So, so I, we started kind of rotating pastures or leaving them out as much
• 49:33
  as possible really with the intent of we could serve more people.
• 49:37
  Now this was, I.
• 49:39
  12 years ago or so, and the horses were doing great, being out all the time.
• 49:45
  So I, I, we were just noticing, you know, our older guys,
• 49:49
  it's better for them to move.
• 49:50
  They're happier.
• 49:52
  And even the younger ones coming in, they were happier in their pasture groups.
• 49:56
  So we had a couple different options over there.
• 49:59
  We had a smaller paddock.
• 50:00
  We added on, we had one big field and we added on another field, but we had
• 50:04
  some gates, you know, we could close and kind of, so we just shifted to
• 50:10
  where they were out almost all the time.
• 50:13
  So if they were in a stall, there was a reason for them to be in a stall.
• 50:17
  Either it was they were waiting for a lesson, they were waiting for
• 50:19
  the vet, they were waiting for the farrier, you know, or even had a
• 50:23
  horse that we got who had equine.
• 50:27
  Narcolepsy.
• 50:28
  Rupert Isaacson: Oh.
• 50:30
  Is one of those.
• 50:30
  Yes.
• 50:31
  Melissa Connor: Yeah.
• 50:32
  And our vet said, keep him outside.
• 50:35
  He's not, he was not comfortable.
• 50:39
  Basically he would not sleep.
• 50:40
  We were bringing him in every night and he was sleep deprived 'cause he wasn't
• 50:44
  comfortable sleeping in his stall.
• 50:45
  Ah.
• 50:46
  He was a big, he was a big guy and our stalls weren't huge and so we had to
• 50:51
  get really creative with him and and, but really turned him out was better.
• 50:57
  We didn't have the issues that we had.
• 50:59
  I once had him, he fell asleep while being groomed with a student and,
• 51:04
  you know, he forgot to lock his legs.
• 51:06
  I mean, he went down.
• 51:07
  So it was he was definitely sleep deprived, which, which I've since
• 51:12
  learned is way more common than we think.
• 51:14
  Mm-hmm.
• 51:15
  Melissa Connor: But again, keeping them out where they figure out their
• 51:19
  herd dynamic, let them sort through it.
• 51:22
  They get their rest time, their work time, kind of trust the horses.
• 51:28
  They know how to do this better than we do.
• 51:29
  And so that was, is really over time it evolved.
• 51:35
  So even as we were building this barn, we wanted, we built a 24 stall barn.
• 51:40
  We put paddocks, as you saw Rupert when you were there.
• 51:42
  We put large paddocks outside of every stall with a Dutch door.
• 51:46
  So if the horse does need to be in, they have the, they can opt in
• 51:52
  or out with their small paddock.
• 51:54
  And, and really it's they come in every morning for breakfast.
• 51:57
  That's our, that's our routine now.
• 52:00
  So they're in, they're in as close to 24 hours a day as possible, but they
• 52:05
  come in for breakfast, we feed them, and that gives us a chance to do.
• 52:09
  Body checks, notice any behavior changes.
• 52:12
  If there's any treatments that need to be done they can be
• 52:15
  done by that morning crew.
• 52:17
  And then they go back out.
• 52:19
  So they're in the barn an hour, maybe two, depending on what,
• 52:24
  what's happening that day.
• 52:25
  If they're working, then they might stay in for their lesson.
• 52:28
  Those not go back out.
• 52:30
  And then we just rotate through the day.
• 52:32
  So they come in, they often don't go to their stall.
• 52:34
  Sometimes they go to their stall to wait for a lesson, but it might be
• 52:39
  15 minutes in a stall, and then it's time to move 'em to the grooming area.
• 52:42
  Mm-hmm.
• 52:42
  Melissa Connor: The cross tie area where they're, they get ready for their work.
• 52:46
  So it's, it, it really, I think we have a good rhythm now, but people sometimes
• 52:52
  are surprised to say in Michigan, you leave them out 24 hours a day.
• 52:56
  I, I remember hearing you speak in Grand Rapids last summer and to the
• 53:01
  dressage barn Leanna's barn there, and, and you said, well go out and ride
• 53:06
  the hills, you know, even in the snow.
• 53:08
  And I remember the, the ladies going, what in the snow?
• 53:12
  You want us to go outside and trot up and down hills?
• 53:14
  And you were like, yes, go.
• 53:15
  So it's funny, we have, in some senses, we have covered arena.
• 53:19
  We have a, we have a heated arena.
• 53:21
  But we can, which I
• 53:22
  Rupert Isaacson: did, I did, I did appreciate when it started to snow there.
• 53:28
  Melissa Connor: But I think then we forget, but we can still go outside.
• 53:31
  Yeah.
• 53:31
  And there is value.
• 53:32
  It just gives us options.
• 53:33
  So we are, we are blessed that we've been able to build a facility.
• 53:37
  All from donated money to, to meet our needs, our horses'
• 53:41
  needs, our rider's needs.
• 53:43
  And, but, but we can still go outside.
• 53:45
  I, I try to have that mentality too, of we don't have to stay in this temperature
• 53:49
  controlled indoor arena even in February.
• 53:52
  There are times it can be okay to go outside for half an hour.
• 53:55
  Yeah,
• 53:56
  exactly.
• 53:57
  Melissa Connor: The horses are fine.
• 53:58
  They're better for it.
• 53:59
  It's the humans that need to bundle.
• 54:01
  Rupert Isaacson: Right.
• 54:01
  And, and just to be fair to, you know, to you as well to listeners,
• 54:04
  if you're thinking, well, if it's that cold and windy Yeah.
• 54:07
  But they, what they do have in these, in these paddocks is in these
• 54:10
  pastures is very nice shelters to get outta the wind, out of the snow,
• 54:14
  out of the rain, out of the wet.
• 54:15
  So they are sheltered.
• 54:19
  But yes, in large groups, and we have the same setup here in Germany
• 54:23
  the horses can wander from pasture into the sort of open area where
• 54:28
  there's free feeding hay and then.
• 54:33
  From there into large, long sheds with a nice sandy bottom if they want
• 54:39
  to get out of the weather whether it's hot or whether it's cold.
• 54:42
  And it's so interesting to me what they choose and when they choose
• 54:45
  and when they really don't choose.
• 54:47
  You're like, you sure you don't want to go in?
• 54:52
  Melissa Connor: Yep, yep.
• 54:53
  I know it is.
• 54:53
  And then there's sometimes we, we try to build, you know, large shelters, but
• 54:59
  then, you know, if there's three in a pasture, you know, and two are in and
• 55:04
  one's out, you wonder like, is did they tell him he couldn't come in there?
• 55:09
  Is there a little dynamic going on?
• 55:11
  But, so we do blanket our horses or put rain sheets on,
• 55:16
  but not everybody all the time.
• 55:19
  It really, it varies by horse.
• 55:21
  We watch them, we want them to.
• 55:25
  Have a coat develop their natural coat.
• 55:27
  But if they get overly sweaty and work and we might need to clip them,
• 55:32
  then we'll do a blanket, or it's just, it's very individualized.
• 55:36
  We make a chart for who needs to be covered when and we, and we watch.
• 55:41
  So it's not always a, oh, the human is cold, it's below 50 degrees.
• 55:47
  Every horse gets, gets their coat on today.
• 55:50
  It's, it's much more individualized.
• 55:52
  Rupert Isaacson: It's, but the proof's in the pudding, Melissa, because
• 55:54
  the horses look fabulous and, and I saw them at the end of the winter.
• 55:58
  Which is always, that's the telltale time, right?
• 56:00
  If, if you're gonna see horses looking not good, that's when you're gonna see it.
• 56:04
  My own included, you know.
• 56:05
  So, hats off to you.
• 56:06
  Oh,
• 56:07
  Melissa Connor: thank you.
• 56:08
  Rupert Isaacson: Now this talk about, as you said, you had to build the
• 56:11
  whole thing with donated money.
• 56:12
  And renew obviously started.
• 56:15
  From very small beginnings in a boarding barn, and it's now
• 56:18
  quite an impressive facility.
• 56:20
  Funding is the big challenge that faces everybody, especially in the
• 56:26
  USA, where there is no government assistance for any of this stuff.
• 56:33
  We're on our own.
• 56:34
  We know it.
• 56:36
  Even Path International is just a standalone nonprofit.
• 56:39
  You know, here in Germany, for example, the Curatorium for therapeutic riding,
• 56:43
  it's actually part of government, it's part of the Ministry of Health.
• 56:45
  It's part, you know, there is a certain amount of funding, there's a certain
• 56:48
  amount of funding for those programs through government, et cetera, et cetera.
• 56:52
  Now,
• 56:55
  the big question I'm always being asked is how do you do the funding?
• 56:59
  And of course there's so many ways to approach this.
• 57:02
  We had our ways of approaching it at new trails.
• 57:05
  How do you do it?
• 57:05
  Because you, you really are having to fundraise quite significant sums there.
• 57:09
  And you, you did a really big build.
• 57:11
  You, you are continuing, I know you're adding a, a, a non mounted
• 57:14
  learning center, which very exciting 'cause of movement method.
• 57:17
  I'll be wanting to get in there and yeah.
• 57:20
  You know.
• 57:20
  So tell me how you do your fundraising, because I think people do need
• 57:25
  guidance on this, mentorship on this.
• 57:28
  Melissa Connor: Absolutely.
• 57:29
  I wish there was a secret formula that I knew and that I could just say, but you
• 57:35
  know, it, it's similar to the pipeline that we need to keep open for bringing
• 57:39
  in quality horses and quality equipment.
• 57:42
  It's the same for just funding which comes down to relationships,
• 57:47
  reputation, and doing excellent work that is changing people's lives.
• 57:54
  So.
• 57:55
  It's my role to keep broadcasting those things in our community and even the
• 58:04
  greater community through people I know people I meet organizations that
• 58:10
  I can partner with tell the stories, tell the stories of transformation
• 58:16
  that happen at Renew on the horses with our staff, with our volunteers.
• 58:23
  We have, we maintain a waiting list for services.
• 58:26
  We serve over a hundred people, about 120 people weekly at Renew.
• 58:32
  Currently, we are constantly talking about how to increase that
• 58:37
  number, how can we serve more, how can we bring more people here?
• 58:41
  So those are things I talk about with poten donors and potential donors.
• 58:47
  We are unique.
• 58:48
  There's not another center in our town.
• 58:52
  There are some in our region an hours drive north or an hours drive west.
• 58:57
  But in our area, no one else is offering what we are offering.
• 59:03
  I say that there's no competition in terms of a therapeutic
• 59:06
  riding center necessarily, but there's a lot of nonprofits.
• 59:10
  There's a whole lot of nonprofits, and especially serving the
• 59:12
  disability and the autism community.
• 59:15
  Another great thing about our area, it it is a very philanthropic area.
• 59:20
  There are people here who have means, who are willing to support programs like ours.
• 59:27
  So, but it takes years.
• 59:30
  It takes years to.
• 59:33
  Build that reputation.
• 59:35
  One of our core values is excellence.
• 59:37
  So going back to we do excellence in our horse care.
• 59:40
  We do excellence in our staffing model.
• 59:42
  We do excellence in our service model, and so we have to demonstrate that excellence.
• 59:49
  And so I'd like to think we do excellence in our fundraising,
• 59:53
  in our marketing as well.
• 59:54
  And it, we're never done, we're never done fundraising.
• 59:59
  I actually had a phone call yesterday with a a center director in Ohio who
• 1:00:05
  shared with me that she, she made her payroll here at the end of the
• 1:00:10
  month and has $20 left to spare.
• 1:00:13
  And just was like, how do you do it?
• 1:00:15
  How do we not constantly live on the edge?
• 1:00:18
  And that's such a hard question because yes, I.
• 1:00:22
  Here in the States, when we depend on the donated dollar to offer these
• 1:00:26
  services, it takes strategic planning.
• 1:00:29
  It takes it takes leadership from a board of directors or from
• 1:00:35
  people willing to have that vision.
• 1:00:37
  And then people saying, this needs to be, be in this community.
• 1:00:42
  I've, I've said over and over again, renew needs to be in this community because we
• 1:00:47
  are serving 120 people a week and we have a waiting list and we are not gonna stop.
• 1:00:53
  And also my vision is beyond me.
• 1:00:56
  I, I want renew to be here 50 years from now.
• 1:00:59
  I want it to have the same standard of excellence that it has
• 1:01:03
  today, or be even better, right?
• 1:01:05
  We wanna build for our future, for our children, our grandchildren,
• 1:01:08
  our great-grandchildren.
• 1:01:09
  So I want there to be systems in place for onboarding horses, for onboarding
• 1:01:15
  staff, for onboarding volunteers, for serving those families who need this
• 1:01:19
  help that is truly transformative and is making a difference in our
• 1:01:23
  community in our community and beyond.
• 1:01:26
  So, you know, those stories of trans transformation, tell those
• 1:01:32
  anywhere and everywhere we can.
• 1:01:34
  I, when
• 1:01:34
  Rupert Isaacson: and how do you tell them?
• 1:01:36
  Melissa Connor: Yeah, good question.
• 1:01:37
  I love to get people to our farm because that's the best place is to, to show them.
• 1:01:43
  Mm-hmm.
• 1:01:43
  But I start by, we are members of our local Chamber of Commerce.
• 1:01:48
  In fact, talking about Grand Rapids.
• 1:01:50
  The Grand Rapids Chamber just reached out to me yesterday just to, and said, we
• 1:01:54
  wanna meet you and hear about what's up.
• 1:01:55
  So I'm like, okay, great.
• 1:01:56
  So I'm going there to talk to them about who we are.
• 1:02:00
  So it, I look for any and op any and every opportunity, but this is, this is
• 1:02:04
  Rupert Isaacson: quite what I'm hearing is that your way of telling
• 1:02:07
  the story is actually person to person with, with a, a larynx and a tongue
• 1:02:11
  rather than just on social media.
• 1:02:13
  Melissa Connor: Absolutely.
• 1:02:14
  Now we do that too.
• 1:02:16
  Rupert Isaacson: Mm-hmm.
• 1:02:17
  Melissa Connor: We, we try to do all the things and I do have on our staff, very
• 1:02:21
  talented communications coordinator, Cassie, who does our website, our social
• 1:02:25
  media and our print materials, and helps with our events, which I shared with you.
• 1:02:29
  We just had an, an event last week, which is our fundraising event.
• 1:02:33
  But the biggest thing is having a person or multiple people
• 1:02:40
  face-to-face time with anywhere.
• 1:02:43
  I, I, I want the average person living in our town to know us, to know our logo,
• 1:02:50
  to, to hear about the work we've doing.
• 1:02:53
  We're doing, like you said, to, they, everybody knows somebody with a disability
• 1:02:58
  who can benefit from these services.
• 1:02:59
  So.
• 1:03:01
  We need to be a household name.
• 1:03:02
  And that takes time to develop.
• 1:03:05
  And then we can't be shy about the fact that we also rely on
• 1:03:11
  donations to offer these services.
• 1:03:14
  But we don't wanna compromise with our, our equipment, our horses.
• 1:03:20
  So if, if, if it ever felt like, we needed to compromise because we had didn't have
• 1:03:26
  funding you know who it's similar to.
• 1:03:31
  Say there's a night.
• 1:03:32
  This hasn't happened to us in a while.
• 1:03:33
  We're very lucky, but say there's a night, Wednesday night, we can't do programming
• 1:03:37
  because all our volunteers canceled.
• 1:03:39
  I used to think, who loves us enough to show up to make this happen?
• 1:03:44
  Who can I call with 10 minutes notice to say, I need you to show up?
• 1:03:48
  To make this happen for these students.
• 1:03:50
  And I used to just have a short list.
• 1:03:53
  Now, you don't wanna live that way every day, every night,
• 1:03:55
  but those moments happen.
• 1:03:57
  So that was kind of the advice I shared with this colleague yesterday
• 1:04:01
  was, who do you know who you can say, we barely made payroll.
• 1:04:06
  Payroll's coming again in two weeks.
• 1:04:08
  I, I need you, I need you to step up and this is our need.
• 1:04:11
  How can we do this?
• 1:04:13
  So I try not to live in that you know, it's on fire way.
• 1:04:19
  I think a lot of therapeutic writing centers do live in that space.
• 1:04:23
  Hmm.
• 1:04:23
  And maybe the growth was too fast.
• 1:04:27
  Maybe the growth was, sometimes it's when we bought our property, we were bursting
• 1:04:35
  at the seams out of the boarding barn.
• 1:04:37
  I told you we had hor, I had horses at my house.
• 1:04:39
  We were borrowing neighbor's horses, we were borrowing boarded horses.
• 1:04:42
  We had horses of our own.
• 1:04:44
  We had three acres, but it was part of this larger farm.
• 1:04:48
  When I think about the things that we did for those few years, like it was
• 1:04:52
  nuts and we shouldn't it, it was not, but I brought people to the property
• 1:04:58
  and said, we are bursting at the seams.
• 1:05:01
  And I had, I think I shared with you, Rupert, I had a volunteer,
• 1:05:05
  asked to have lunch with me who, who said, we've noticed, I've
• 1:05:08
  noticed, what's your 10 year plan?
• 1:05:10
  What's your 20 year plan?
• 1:05:12
  And I was able to share that with her.
• 1:05:15
  And she
• 1:05:15
  Melissa Connor: gave us a significant donation, which became our down payment on
• 1:05:18
  our farm that Renew was able to purchase.
• 1:05:21
  Rupert Isaacson: To have that plan.
• 1:05:22
  Melissa Connor: Yeah.
• 1:05:23
  So to be able to, 'cause I was thinking about it all the time.
• 1:05:26
  I knew what we had wasn't sustainable.
• 1:05:29
  Mm-hmm.
• 1:05:29
  Melissa Connor: But it, it, we also had to demonstrate the need.
• 1:05:33
  We had to demonstrate that this is worth investing in.
• 1:05:36
  We have a plan.
• 1:05:38
  Worked hard to have a good reputation in the community.
• 1:05:41
  Happy to share the mission, vision, values with anybody who wanted to know.
• 1:05:46
  And then the right people are drawn to us, and it's not for lack of initiating.
• 1:05:53
  I tried to, there's, there's some generous families in our town
• 1:05:58
  and some of them are our donors.
• 1:06:01
  Not all, you know.
• 1:06:02
  Now there's some that I wish were our donors that aren't, but you never know
• 1:06:06
  what's gonna pique their interest or their how you get their attention.
• 1:06:10
  So you never stop trying.
• 1:06:12
  I remember sending just a letter of introduction to.
• 1:06:16
  People I hadn't met before, but saying, I would like to invite
• 1:06:19
  you to learn about our mission.
• 1:06:21
  You know, I think I sent out a hundred letters.
• 1:06:23
  I think I had two responses.
• 1:06:24
  Yeah.
• 1:06:25
  Rupert Isaacson: But
• 1:06:25
  Melissa Connor: one of those became one of our major donors.
• 1:06:28
  Rupert Isaacson: Absolutely.
• 1:06:29
  I have a story to tell about that, and it's actually not to do with
• 1:06:31
  the therapeutic riding part of my career when I, as you know, I was
• 1:06:35
  a an activist human rights activist in Africa for quite a while.
• 1:06:39
  And when I was first getting going with that, because I'd made the mistake of
• 1:06:43
  agreeing on, while sitting on top of a sand dune during a conversation with a,
• 1:06:48
  a sand bushman hunter gatherer called David Kpa to, he said, we need, you're
• 1:06:53
  a journalist, Rupert, assuming that I had all this power, which I didn't.
• 1:06:57
  You, we, you need to get us to the west so that you know, we can tell
• 1:07:00
  our story and get our lamb back.
• 1:07:02
  Get us to the un.
• 1:07:04
  And I went, okay.
• 1:07:06
  Then afterwards I'm like, oh my gosh, what did I promise in the event we did?
• 1:07:11
  And we got into the State Department in all sorts of places in the end
• 1:07:13
  and actually got the job done.
• 1:07:15
  Okay, great.
• 1:07:16
  But I remember at the very beginning I was thinking, okay, what am I gonna do?
• 1:07:20
  And I recently published a book called The Healing Land, which told
• 1:07:23
  the story of, of my time there, at least the early part of my time there.
• 1:07:26
  And so I thought, well, I got this book and so I can use that as a
• 1:07:28
  bit of a platform, but you know, it's 50,000 books published a year.
• 1:07:32
  Just 'cause you've published a book doesn't mean a whole lot.
• 1:07:34
  And so, and I'd actually just recently moved to Austin, Texas where I didn't
• 1:07:38
  really know anybody, but we'd moved from Denver where we had some friends and
• 1:07:42
  had been active in the horse community.
• 1:07:43
  So that, well, if I go there and perhaps do a little fundraiser at the
• 1:07:47
  big tattered cover, that's the big independent bookstore there, you know.
• 1:07:51
  I think a few people would show up and probably, you know, maybe
• 1:07:54
  get some, some donations going and I'd, I'd started a little
• 1:07:58
  nonprofit under the, someone else's.
• 1:08:00
  So anyway, I thought I, I've gotta start somewhere.
• 1:08:02
  So I started with that.
• 1:08:03
  So I had to fly from Austin back to Denver with money I couldn't really afford to do.
• 1:08:09
  And so let's say the whole thing cost me five, 600 bucks to put on, which at
• 1:08:12
  that, that time I didn't really have.
• 1:08:13
  And five people showed up.
• 1:08:16
  However, one of those people subsequently went and talked to a friend of theirs,
• 1:08:24
  and about three months later I got an anonymous phone call saying, okay,
• 1:08:27
  we've recent, you don't even know who I am, blah, blah, blah, but I've
• 1:08:30
  researched what you were talking about.
• 1:08:32
  It's legit.
• 1:08:34
  We are gonna back you for a third of the budget, and if you tell other
• 1:08:39
  people that we are backing you, you'll, you'll get others as well.
• 1:08:41
  And sure enough that, so what that really hit home to me is.
• 1:08:46
  Exactly what you said.
• 1:08:47
  Get out there and tell the story.
• 1:08:49
  And don't worry if only a couple of people show up mm-hmm.
• 1:08:53
  Because you just don't know who they are or who they might go talk to.
• 1:08:59
  But it sure as hell won't happen if you don't do it.
• 1:09:01
  Right.
• 1:09:01
  So one of my strategies used to be go talk to all the rotary clubs.
• 1:09:05
  Like I would draw a circle
• 1:09:07
  Melissa Connor: Yep.
• 1:09:08
  Rupert Isaacson: At two hour radius and say everyone, all the rotary clubs,
• 1:09:11
  because they've gotta have speakers.
• 1:09:12
  Right,
• 1:09:13
  Melissa Connor: right.
• 1:09:13
  Yeah.
• 1:09:14
  And so they're
• 1:09:14
  Rupert Isaacson: crying out for speakers and usually the speakers
• 1:09:16
  they get are like, crushingly boring.
• 1:09:18
  So if you go in there with a lovely PowerPoint of kids having an amazing
• 1:09:22
  time with ponies, I mean, it is like absolutely get heavy back.
• 1:09:27
  Melissa Connor: I I, I think you'll like this because you're such an engaging
• 1:09:30
  speaker, but I always and people think this is crazy in these rotary clubs, but
• 1:09:35
  I always have people sit on their hands.
• 1:09:37
  And feel their seat bones, you know?
• 1:09:38
  Yeah.
• 1:09:38
  And then just describe the three planes of movement of the horse and get them
• 1:09:42
  rocking in their seats and shifting their weight and they feel their pelvis move.
• 1:09:47
  And then I can draw that line to, we can provide that movement
• 1:09:53
  and this is what it does for the people and these are the stories.
• 1:09:57
  And then people were like, wow, that was so great.
• 1:10:00
  I'm like, all you did was have them sit on your hands.
• 1:10:02
  I used to joke that I'm the youngest of, of three girls in my family.
• 1:10:08
  And you know, we had the, the old station wagon in the seventies growing up, and
• 1:10:12
  I remember my mom saying, sit on your hands back there, like in the backseat.
• 1:10:15
  So I used to say,
• 1:10:19
  no, I don't know.
• 1:10:19
  I had to do this as a little girl, so we didn't pick on each other or nobody picked
• 1:10:23
  on me, but sit on your hands, indulge me for a second and, you know, feel those
• 1:10:27
  seat bones and understand the movement.
• 1:10:29
  But yeah, I've said I've done that talk at, at multiple times at Rotary
• 1:10:34
  Clubs, but I, similar to you after I spoke, I think the first time at
• 1:10:38
  a rotary club here in a neighboring town of Saugatuck here in Michigan.
• 1:10:43
  I had a couple days later, a man give me a call and say, heard you speak.
• 1:10:48
  Loved what you said.
• 1:10:49
  I would love a tour.
• 1:10:50
  So set up a tour, met his wife.
• 1:10:54
  They are major donors and have become good friends.
• 1:10:57
  Mm-hmm.
• 1:10:57
  And I met them from speaking at now this is a little small town rotary.
• 1:11:02
  I think there were 20 people there, you know, at this luncheon.
• 1:11:04
  But most of the rot rotaries
• 1:11:06
  Rupert Isaacson: I would go to would be like that.
• 1:11:08
  Melissa Connor: Yeah.
• 1:11:08
  As
• 1:11:09
  Rupert Isaacson: well.
• 1:11:09
  But I mean, but sometimes that's actually where I feel you get
• 1:11:11
  the, a better response because you are, there's less clamor.
• 1:11:15
  You're not, if you go to a Roastary club in the middle of New York or London,
• 1:11:21
  there's a lot of interesting stuff around.
• 1:11:23
  You're just one of many.
• 1:11:24
  Melissa Connor: Yeah.
• 1:11:25
  Rupert Isaacson: It's sometimes better to be a big fish in a small pond.
• 1:11:27
  Yeah.
• 1:11:28
  Yeah.
• 1:11:28
  Melissa Connor: Right.
• 1:11:29
  Absolutely.
• 1:11:30
  Absolutely.
• 1:11:31
  And so sometimes it doesn't have to be anything fancy, but like you said,
• 1:11:36
  just getting the word out there, look for, I have been a lunch speaker,
• 1:11:41
  even for some local businesses, like a financial investment group.
• 1:11:45
  They do a lunch, lunch and learn once a month, you know, and I've,
• 1:11:48
  they invited me to speak and that was because I met somebody at a Chamber
• 1:11:52
  of Commerce networking event, which I go to those and take my, you know,
• 1:11:56
  take all my my cards, brochures, and
• 1:11:59
  Rupert Isaacson: yes.
• 1:11:59
  Melissa Connor: So those kinds of things do, take, take, it takes
• 1:12:03
  time, but getting that word out so that you can invite people in.
• 1:12:08
  And I think that's the way to go, tell the story, get it out there.
• 1:12:12
  But then if people could come to the writing center and actually see with
• 1:12:16
  their own eyes and see the students and it, how powerful is it to see?
• 1:12:23
  Either a child on the autism spectrum go from you know, getting out of the
• 1:12:30
  car, entering the barn to being on the horse and seeing that empowerment
• 1:12:36
  and that pride and how they glow when they're on, on the horse.
• 1:12:43
  I think the donors need to see that and need to see.
• 1:12:47
  We also serve people with physical challenges.
• 1:12:49
  And we have a, you know, a wheelchair lift system, a sure hands lift system.
• 1:12:54
  And so that's the, that's a very physically obvious one where the horse
• 1:13:01
  becomes the person's legs and their, their pelvis, their spine gets to
• 1:13:05
  move as if they were walking because the horse is creating that movement.
• 1:13:10
  That's, that's always a powerful visual tool too.
• 1:13:15
  And so just to bring people into the space and show them.
• 1:13:19
  Then they, they usually get one over.
• 1:13:22
  Rupert Isaacson: Well, luckily also the, the horses are always the best
• 1:13:26
  ambassadors and, and the kids themselves.
• 1:13:28
  It's like, yeah.
• 1:13:29
  But one of the things I often encourage people to do, I mean, everything
• 1:13:33
  we're talking about is, is, is local, but I always also encourage people
• 1:13:36
  to go outside their area as well.
• 1:13:39
  Like you say with lunch and learns, you know, they could
• 1:13:43
  be not actually in your area.
• 1:13:48
  Perhaps you haven't got the budget to travel, but often they can happen by Zoom.
• 1:13:51
  I just did one for example, for UPS oh.
• 1:13:53
  And they were like 2000 people on that employees.
• 1:13:57
  Wow.
• 1:13:58
  Rupert Isaacson: Guess what?
• 1:13:58
  There's a ton of employees with special needs.
• 1:14:01
  if you're a horse nerd, and if you're on this podcast, I'm guessing you are, then
• 1:14:06
  you've probably also always wondered a little bit about the old master system.
• 1:14:12
  of dressage training.
• 1:14:13
  If you go and check out our Helios Harmony program, we outline there step by step
• 1:14:22
  exactly how to train your horse from the ground to become the dressage horse
• 1:14:28
  of your dreams in a way that absolutely serves the physical, mental and emotional
• 1:14:35
  well being of the horse and the rider.
• 1:14:38
  Intrigued?
• 1:14:39
  Like to know more?
• 1:14:40
  Go to our website, Helios Harmony.
• 1:14:45
  Check out the free introduction course.
• 1:14:47
  Take it from there.
• 1:14:48
  Yeah.
• 1:14:48
  Or, or family members with special needs.
• 1:14:50
  Yeah.
• 1:14:51
  So the Lunch and Learn people at UPS, they look for, and they actually have
• 1:14:55
  all these different clubs within UPS of, they have a whole special needs.
• 1:14:58
  Section, I'll gladly hook you up, you know?
• 1:15:01
  And wow.
• 1:15:02
  So people were just coming, I was doing it from Germany, but most of
• 1:15:06
  the people were in the US but actually they were further afield as well.
• 1:15:10
  And then what happens is, I think this is where we can really
• 1:15:13
  help each other as a community.
• 1:15:14
  So I had people at the question saying, well, I'm sitting here
• 1:15:18
  in North Carolina, or I'm sitting here in Colorado, what can I do?
• 1:15:24
  And I could say, oh, well we've actually got these three practitioners over here,
• 1:15:28
  or those four practitioners over there.
• 1:15:30
  Or if there's no one in your area, you could at least do the movement method
• 1:15:34
  course yourself and work at home.
• 1:15:36
  Yeah.
• 1:15:36
  But you know, that's why I'm always excited to.
• 1:15:39
  Places like yours, like renew?
• 1:15:40
  'cause I can sort of just add them to the list of resources.
• 1:15:43
  Yeah, I think it always comes across very well when you are fundraising,
• 1:15:47
  if you recommend other people.
• 1:15:49
  I, I think that's often, often a winning thing.
• 1:15:51
  One of the things that I, I think is a really big turnoff, which happens, and
• 1:15:54
  I'm always surprised that people do it, is when people badmouth other people,
• 1:16:00
  and I think your average donor that has been successful enough in life to be in a
• 1:16:06
  position where they can be a donor that's.
• 1:16:10
  A massive red flag right there.
• 1:16:11
  It's like, oh, you're someone who causes conflict in your community.
• 1:16:14
  Yeah.
• 1:16:14
  You're not someone who causes, all right, well, mm.
• 1:16:18
  And one sees a surprising amount of this still in the therapeutic riding world.
• 1:16:21
  It, it, it never ceases to amaze me.
• 1:16:23
  It actually made me very sad at the beginning.
• 1:16:25
  'cause I, I came into it a little bit, starry-eyed, you know, having worked
• 1:16:29
  with my, my own son and stumbled into something good and thought, oh, well,
• 1:16:33
  you know, and whoa, it was, it wasn't
• 1:16:38
  environment.
• 1:16:39
  Rupert Isaacson: And and I thought, well that makes me a bit sad as
• 1:16:42
  the father of an autistic boy.
• 1:16:44
  Because that means that you all don't really prioritize the
• 1:16:50
  kids, even if you say you do.
• 1:16:51
  'cause if you did, you wouldn't indulge in that kind of negative behavior because
• 1:16:57
  you would know, it would always, it would inevitably rebound on the kid, right.
• 1:17:00
  I mean, but yeah.
• 1:17:02
  Hey, humans to humans, so.
• 1:17:05
  You know, one of the things I've noticed about you is I've never heard
• 1:17:08
  you talk that way about anybody.
• 1:17:10
  And I do think that there is a lesson there.
• 1:17:13
  I think people, particularly donors, are often listening more closely than
• 1:17:18
  one might think to what you, not to what you say, but to what you don't say or
• 1:17:23
  to the things that you say that are not perhaps directly to do with the work.
• 1:17:29
  Yeah.
• 1:17:29
  What, you know, could you speak to that a little bit?
• 1:17:32
  Because I know, you know, you've, you've, you've had some experience in this, but
• 1:17:37
  both in the sort of going outside of your community and just also in the sort of
• 1:17:41
  community, I guess what we are really talking about is community building and
• 1:17:43
  community building within our industry, within our, within our field, if you like.
• 1:17:49
  Where really we're all colleagues, right?
• 1:17:51
  I mean Right.
• 1:17:52
  Should be treated absolutely.
• 1:17:54
  That way, you know, it's, it's.
• 1:17:57
  Melissa Connor: Yeah, I, I, I know I have a, a good friend and
• 1:17:59
  colleague who just says it's crazy.
• 1:18:01
  We bring horse people and we bring advocates for people with disabilities.
• 1:18:08
  Both tend to have intense personalities and we just throw them together.
• 1:18:12
  And so is there a surprise that we have a difference of opinion sometimes?
• 1:18:18
  Fair enough.
• 1:18:19
  No.
• 1:18:20
  Melissa Connor: But I do, I, I, I resonate with what you're saying.
• 1:18:24
  Absolutely.
• 1:18:25
  Because people do have intense feelings about equine assisted services and they
• 1:18:31
  have intense feelings about this work.
• 1:18:34
  They have intense feelings about their horses, about their son, daughter,
• 1:18:38
  nephew, grandchild, neighbor, friend, you know, who's receiving services.
• 1:18:43
  Mm-hmm.
• 1:18:44
  Melissa Connor: And so I think everything does get magnified in our world and
• 1:18:48
  Rupert Isaacson: Fair point.
• 1:18:50
  Melissa Connor: So, yeah, so conflict happens.
• 1:18:53
  Conflict is part of life.
• 1:18:54
  Conflict is is a natural outcome of people working together.
• 1:18:59
  So I think one of the things that I've definitely learned and is not to, the
• 1:19:06
  worst thing you can do is avoid conflict or run away from it, or shy away from it,
• 1:19:10
  but rather just dive in and in a, have a culture, which we, we intentionally
• 1:19:19
  talk about our culture at Renew, where we want to care for one another.
• 1:19:25
  We care for our horses with excellence.
• 1:19:26
  We care for the people we serve.
• 1:19:28
  We want people to feel like they're heard and they're important.
• 1:19:33
  And so we make a concerted effort to.
• 1:19:39
  Talk about things.
• 1:19:40
  I want people to understand if, if I, as the executive director have to make
• 1:19:45
  a decision, like, we're doing this program, we're not doing this program.
• 1:19:48
  I don't just make the decision and walk away and boom, drop it, but
• 1:19:52
  want everybody to know why or how we arrived there or there was buy-in.
• 1:19:57
  I had a family come to our barn dedication last fall, who I had known from Virginia.
• 1:20:05
  They had been donors and I had been friends with their children
• 1:20:10
  in, in that, in that space.
• 1:20:13
  And we had lived in the same town and they chose to, to come and, and support
• 1:20:19
  renew really, because I was there and they knew me, but we, I was walking around
• 1:20:24
  showing them the property, looking at the horses, kind of like what you did.
• 1:20:28
  They said, how come this.
• 1:20:31
  Place seems so amazing, or how did you think to do this?
• 1:20:35
  And I said, first of all, it was not me.
• 1:20:38
  I try, I involved other people every step of the way.
• 1:20:42
  So when we got the first donation for what became our permanent
• 1:20:47
  home, we set, we did a town hall.
• 1:20:50
  I invited volunteers, parents, you know, I said, what do you want
• 1:20:55
  in a therapeutic writing center?
• 1:20:57
  And we sent out surveys.
• 1:20:59
  We did this more than once.
• 1:21:01
  Rupert Isaacson: Oh, good idea.
• 1:21:02
  Melissa Connor: We formed a, a task force, a committee.
• 1:21:05
  Basically, I made sure that I was a part of it, but we had other staff members,
• 1:21:09
  board members, volunteers, parents that were, that were committed to meeting
• 1:21:13
  together so that we could design.
• 1:21:16
  The 20 acres, what's the flow?
• 1:21:19
  Where do we want the horses?
• 1:21:20
  Where do we want the riders?
• 1:21:22
  How do we wanna welcome them?
• 1:21:23
  What values need to be evident and obvious?
• 1:21:28
  And you know, we want people to feel accepted and they had great
• 1:21:32
  ideas that were not my ideas.
• 1:21:35
  So I had some ideas, other people had other ideas, but we threw 'em
• 1:21:39
  all up there and we talked about 'em and we involved the builder.
• 1:21:44
  And then when we kind of had a plan, that's when I could take the plan to
• 1:21:49
  the donors and say, will you fund this?
• 1:21:51
  This is how we came up with the plan.
• 1:21:53
  So I think that sometimes smaller nonprofits have a founder or have
• 1:22:00
  a designated leader who and maybe it's even on their own property.
• 1:22:05
  I never wanted the writing center on my own property, just for some.
• 1:22:11
  Separation of home and work life.
• 1:22:14
  So I knew that wasn't something I wanna renew to have their own property
• 1:22:18
  because I think realistic enough to know that, you know, I am may not be here
• 1:22:25
  in five or 10 years, but I want renew to still be here in five or 10 years.
• 1:22:28
  You know, nobody, we all are, we are mortal.
• 1:22:32
  So, but I want renew I to invest in this organization to live beyond me.
• 1:22:38
  Rupert Isaacson: Yeah, sure.
• 1:22:38
  So
• 1:22:39
  Melissa Connor: I have to try to plan it that way.
• 1:22:43
  Create, buy-in, actively listen to people and what they care about.
• 1:22:48
  I have even called donors and I, I did this, we had a mor, we have a mortgage
• 1:22:54
  on the property and I was asking for funds to build, you know, the new barn
• 1:23:01
  and we hadn't paid off our mortgage.
• 1:23:03
  And I reached out even to donors and said, I'm leaning towards.
• 1:23:09
  Keeping the mortgage right now, when we got the mortgage, money was cheap.
• 1:23:13
  We have like a 2% interest on our mortgage.
• 1:23:16
  So I said, are you okay if we carry this mortgage a few more years and go
• 1:23:20
  ahead and build our barn because this is gonna make it an easier space to
• 1:23:26
  serve our students in every donor I called said, absolutely, if this is what
• 1:23:31
  you feel you're ready for, I support you and I will give to build the barn.
• 1:23:35
  So, but I had to ask the question, so had to have the trust, the relationship.
• 1:23:41
  Those are just examples of, it's not just me.
• 1:23:44
  I think there's, if a person, if one person or a small group of people makes
• 1:23:49
  all the decision without asking the questions or getting that community buy-in
• 1:23:54
  I think conflict is more likely to happen.
• 1:23:58
  Or people may be off put that they weren't invited in and I think that's where.
• 1:24:04
  Conflict can happen.
• 1:24:05
  So now we did have disagreements and I'd shared with you, yeah,
• 1:24:09
  we had some disagreements.
• 1:24:11
  We don't have, every staff member didn't stay with us from our transition from
• 1:24:17
  the smaller property to the larger one.
• 1:24:20
  And that's okay.
• 1:24:21
  This is a world where people all have choices and not everybody liked us going
• 1:24:27
  from a small center to a big center.
• 1:24:29
  Rupert Isaacson: Right.
• 1:24:30
  Melissa Connor: Not everybody could make that jump.
• 1:24:33
  And that's also okay.
• 1:24:35
  I felt like I had been given a vision and placed in this role as a leader where if
• 1:24:41
  there were enough people with a shared vision and the community was gonna get
• 1:24:45
  behind it, we were gonna go with the idea of serving as many people as possible.
• 1:24:50
  So I.
• 1:24:51
  Yeah, that just made some people uncomfortable and you, so naturally, there
• 1:24:57
  are some people that fall by the wayside.
• 1:25:00
  And my hope, I can't say I've done this a hundred percent because nothing is ever
• 1:25:06
  a hundred percent, or if I could do over, maybe I do some of that differently.
• 1:25:10
  But I can say that I have tried my best to maintain relationships with the
• 1:25:17
  people that wanted to be part of what we were doing in the community and,
• 1:25:22
  and try to always have an open door.
• 1:25:25
  Anyone can reach out and say, request a meeting, or, I, I try to tell my
• 1:25:29
  staff too, anything's on the table.
• 1:25:31
  We talk, we make sure we encourage each other, appreciate each other.
• 1:25:35
  We meet together, we ride together.
• 1:25:38
  I've done things.
• 1:25:39
  Even talking, talking about riding.
• 1:25:41
  Our instructors are doing it overnight next week, but we all went and took
• 1:25:45
  a hunter jumper lesson together at a, at a local barn like two years ago.
• 1:25:50
  They loved it.
• 1:25:50
  We just took a day and you met Ellis, even Ellis wrote a third red named
• 1:25:55
  Betty and jumped a three foot fence.
• 1:25:57
  You know, I mean, it was great.
• 1:25:58
  So we try to, we try to build in experiences at every level where we can
• 1:26:05
  still share life together, share our work together, have fun together, but
• 1:26:11
  all of that works to set a stage where conflict isn't, isn't gonna ruin us.
• 1:26:17
  Rupert Isaacson: Well, that's you had mentioned earlier in the conversation
• 1:26:20
  excellence in staffing, and I was actually gonna ask you about that.
• 1:26:24
  So I think you just sort of answered my question a little bit there.
• 1:26:28
  But I do think that that's something which.
• 1:26:31
  It doesn't always happen and it's entirely forgivable because as you say, I think
• 1:26:40
  the majority of places that do our work are often in a state of overwhelm.
• 1:26:44
  Mm-hmm.
• 1:26:45
  And one needs a little bit of a pause and a perspective to be able to come up with
• 1:26:51
  ideas like, let's not only all go and have a hunter jumper lesson, but how do we set
• 1:26:58
  aside the time and the budget for that?
• 1:27:00
  And in order to do that, that means a certain amount of efficiency must have
• 1:27:07
  taken us outta the overwhelm phase.
• 1:27:10
  You have been in overwhelm.
• 1:27:13
  Mm-hmm.
• 1:27:13
  Talk to us a little bit about how you went from overwhelm to non overwhelm so
• 1:27:20
  that you could be in a position to staff in the way that you wanted to staff.
• 1:27:27
  Melissa Connor: What a great question.
• 1:27:29
  So it was from 2014 to 2019, we had a five year lease agreement for
• 1:27:40
  that little three acre parcel, which I mentioned at the boarding barn.
• 1:27:44
  Happens to be across the street, literally at the end of my driveway,
• 1:27:48
  across the street from where I live.
• 1:27:50
  So I think I dove in.
• 1:27:53
  I was so excited for one thing to have sort of our own space for
• 1:27:59
  renew to exist and operate in that five years we grew exponentially.
• 1:28:06
  I knew by 2016, definitely 2017.
• 1:28:09
  We had so much interest.
• 1:28:11
  We had schools reaching out to us.
• 1:28:12
  We had parents, families, eager for our services.
• 1:28:15
  We started a waiting list, I think in 2016.
• 1:28:19
  I knew it was temporary.
• 1:28:21
  I think I was willing to put in the work because I knew at the,
• 1:28:25
  at, when 2019 rolled around, we had to go somewhere else.
• 1:28:29
  We could not stay where we were.
• 1:28:31
  We were not going to.
• 1:28:33
  It was a five-year lease that I had signed, you know, in 2014.
• 1:28:38
  And it, it was not sustainable,
• 1:28:41
  Rupert Isaacson: right?
• 1:28:41
  Melissa Connor: So I think I saw that there was gonna be a light at the
• 1:28:46
  end of the tunnel so I could work really hard for those few years.
• 1:28:52
  And yes, overwork myself for those few years.
• 1:28:55
  Learned a lot along the way, but then we knew that something
• 1:29:00
  better was going to happen.
• 1:29:02
  But like I said, I, I knew we needed an answer.
• 1:29:05
  It was in 2017 that a volunteer noticed, you know, who, who ended up being our
• 1:29:13
  donor, who gave us the down payment for the property that we have now.
• 1:29:17
  That's our permanent home.
• 1:29:19
  I didn't initiate that.
• 1:29:20
  I was just trying to stay focused on the mission and do good work.
• 1:29:24
  Mm-hmm.
• 1:29:24
  I was trying to do good work and I was willing to, to work hard to do that
• 1:29:29
  good work for that period of time.
• 1:29:32
  If, if if that had not happened, you know, where would we be?
• 1:29:36
  I pro I would've preferred to move to a different property that would've
• 1:29:41
  better served our needs, but I, we were just gonna wait and see.
• 1:29:44
  So for us it was, divine intervention, the stars aligned anyway, the donor
• 1:29:50
  stepped up and we were able to, to, to make that move and make that plan.
• 1:29:55
  But I always knew it was temporary.
• 1:29:56
  Mm-hmm.
• 1:29:57
  So five years might not feel like a long time, but it was, it
• 1:30:01
  was, you know, it was a while.
• 1:30:03
  Rupert Isaacson: It was five years.
• 1:30:04
  Overwhelm can be,
• 1:30:08
  yeah.
• 1:30:08
  It's well, the proof's in the pudding, Melissa, you know, what, what you've
• 1:30:12
  achieved is is beautiful to see.
• 1:30:15
  Mm, thank you.
• 1:30:16
  Rupert Isaacson: What I would encourage listeners to do is reach out to Melissa
• 1:30:23
  and even consider going up there because it's a beautiful facility, but it's also
• 1:30:30
  not a ridiculously overwhelming facility.
• 1:30:33
  It's not the Kentucky Horse Park.
• 1:30:34
  You know, it's it's on a scale that one could imagine.
• 1:30:41
  Doing oneself once one had a certain amount of momentum rolling.
• 1:30:49
  But I think that I would like to see a lot more mentorship within our field
• 1:30:55
  because most of us bootstrapped it.
• 1:30:57
  Most of us fell into it.
• 1:30:59
  Most of us.
• 1:31:00
  We certainly didn't get into it for the money.
• 1:31:03
  And we, we found ourselves here.
• 1:31:07
  Now I think it's changing.
• 1:31:09
  It's now becoming a really viable career path.
• 1:31:13
  We are really seeing this in Ireland, for example, where the government really
• 1:31:16
  got behind Horse Boy and movement method.
• 1:31:18
  Once it, it was very clear that at a place called Li Skint Farm man, David Doyle,
• 1:31:24
  who I've talked about before sort of proved that they could take very violent.
• 1:31:29
  People who had up to three minders with them at any one time, each of
• 1:31:34
  which is very expensive, and bring that down to one, you know, consistently
• 1:31:37
  over five years of this thing.
• 1:31:39
  And of course, this got government attention.
• 1:31:41
  And eventually they said, okay, we'll, we'll back it.
• 1:31:43
  Now suddenly we're looking at having a different type of problem, which is how do
• 1:31:48
  we staff these large new facilities that are coming up with the government backing?
• 1:31:53
  Because yes, sure there's a lot of good horse people in Ireland, but now
• 1:31:57
  that there's government stamp on it, they've gotta have these qualifications.
• 1:32:00
  They gotta have this, they gotta have that.
• 1:32:02
  And the pool narrows.
• 1:32:03
  You can't just have your friend from down the road who's good with ponies right.
• 1:32:07
  That's not gonna fly anymore.
• 1:32:09
  So
• 1:32:12
  the industry's shifting.
• 1:32:14
  And it's good because the, when you and I began.
• 1:32:20
  We were lucky if we could find volunteers, the people that we ended
• 1:32:24
  up employing or that you still employ.
• 1:32:26
  We had to really scramble to find that budget.
• 1:32:31
  Now as things change, it, it's not a thing that people have to think about begging
• 1:32:36
  themselves to do or just volunteering or perhaps working for a ER's wage.
• 1:32:43
  It's shifting.
• 1:32:45
  Mm-hmm.
• 1:32:46
  With that shift, however, comes the next set of challenges, which
• 1:32:51
  are good challenges to have.
• 1:32:53
  How to find the staffing, how to put the strategies in place, how to deal with
• 1:32:58
  conflict, how to deal with entitlement.
• 1:33:01
  You know, because if people are coming into an actually an assured job, you know,
• 1:33:05
  rather than something that they've sort of created themselves, that does sometimes
• 1:33:10
  create a slightly different mentality.
• 1:33:11
  That's not always a healthy mentality, da, da, da.
• 1:33:14
  They're gonna need to turn to people like you, Melissa, I think for guidance
• 1:33:19
  that this next generation coming up.
• 1:33:21
  So do you have any thoughts that way in terms of creating
• 1:33:32
  those sorts of symposiums?
• 1:33:33
  Official, unofficial, there was just one in Ireland, for example, last week
• 1:33:37
  we're doing this in a, just at the end of April, April, 2025, the Equine Assisted
• 1:33:41
  services Ireland sort of working group.
• 1:33:44
  We're getting together with a lot of the key players there.
• 1:33:49
  Some of whom.
• 1:33:51
  Think more highly of each other than others, but yet they're beginning to
• 1:33:56
  be able to sort of bury those hatchets and actually get in the same room
• 1:34:00
  and do it because we are realizing, no, we're going to the next level.
• 1:34:02
  Now we can't be a bunch of kindergartners.
• 1:34:05
  The US is obviously a much bigger
• 1:34:09
  organism divided into regions, but are you starting to think along these lines
• 1:34:15
  as well of, of, of starting to create these, if you like, think tanks, really?
• 1:34:19
  Melissa Connor: Yeah.
• 1:34:21
  I, I am, I believe you have nailed it on the head that mentorship is what
• 1:34:28
  our industry needs more than anything.
• 1:34:30
  And we do, we tend to have doers, people that like to be.
• 1:34:38
  Part of the magic that happens in the arena, the magic that happens
• 1:34:42
  between participant and horse.
• 1:34:44
  But we do need people
• 1:34:49
  excited to go out in the community and tell stories, people who know
• 1:34:52
  how to plan strategically, people who know how to do something, like create
• 1:34:57
  a budget, raise a budget, balance the books, write job descriptions
• 1:35:04
  Rupert Isaacson: and watch calling from the room.
• 1:35:06
  Yeah,
• 1:35:06
  Melissa Connor: I know those are skills that people don't get into equine
• 1:35:12
  assistance services to do those things.
• 1:35:14
  They think, oh, that's the business side.
• 1:35:17
  I, I have, have at times feel torn because I love the direct service.
• 1:35:25
  That's why, that's what drew me to the field.
• 1:35:27
  I, I grew up loving horses, riding horses, but when I saw.
• 1:35:34
  The transformation that happened with children with disabilities.
• 1:35:39
  I, I, that just became my passion.
• 1:35:41
  There was nothing else I wanted to do.
• 1:35:43
  But I had a, a background that did prepare me for nonprofit work, and that
• 1:35:49
  did prepare me to understand the, those other things, how to fundraise, how to
• 1:35:55
  write a grant, how to develop a board the difference between governance and doing.
• 1:36:02
  And I, so I feel, and so I've created my role at Renew.
• 1:36:06
  So I am in both worlds.
• 1:36:08
  Yeah, I'm res fully responsible for both worlds, but I have people
• 1:36:12
  around me supporting me so that I'm not the only one doing that.
• 1:36:16
  But in that sense I also recognize that most people aren't able
• 1:36:21
  to keep a foot on both sides.
• 1:36:23
  And that's completely fine because I think everyone should.
• 1:36:28
  Like, I, I think we should be recruiting people into equine assisted services who
• 1:36:32
  are, who are MBAs, who are accountants, who are, you know, know that side
• 1:36:39
  and but, but get so excited about our mission that they wanna, they wanna help.
• 1:36:46
  That's who our board.
• 1:36:47
  Yes.
• 1:36:47
  It's because at the
• 1:36:47
  Rupert Isaacson: moment we get those people, if they have, if they have
• 1:36:49
  kids that we're serving and then they become part of the organization.
• 1:36:53
  But we don't necessarily get them if, if we don't.
• 1:36:56
  Yeah.
• 1:36:56
  Melissa Connor: If we don't.
• 1:36:57
  No, you and you're exactly right.
• 1:36:59
  But I do think, and I'll, I'll, I'll use my, I.
• 1:37:02
  My son really quickly 'cause he just shared this with me over
• 1:37:04
  the weekend and my, my son is 29 and he had a stroke during birth.
• 1:37:10
  He is, he really helped open my eyes to help people learn differently and hit
• 1:37:15
  developmental milestones differently.
• 1:37:18
  And but anyway, Tommy is a, a, a web designer is in the IT world
• 1:37:24
  now in his late twenties, but, and he's working for a company.
• 1:37:28
  He enjoys his job.
• 1:37:29
  He is great at his job, but he did just share with me, he's like, I'm
• 1:37:33
  just helping this company get richer.
• 1:37:37
  So feeling a little like, I wish I was spending my days doing something.
• 1:37:43
  That was making a difference in the world, other than just
• 1:37:46
  making this company richer.
• 1:37:47
  So, which, you know, as a mom, I was like, oh, I love that.
• 1:37:51
  I want you to get, you know,
• 1:37:53
  Rupert Isaacson: tell them to make that donation to renew
• 1:37:57
  all in Michigan.
• 1:37:58
  Melissa Connor: But I, I love that in his generation that he was feeling that.
• 1:38:02
  And now he does vol, you know, he does some volunteer work and
• 1:38:05
  he volunteers some IT stuff.
• 1:38:07
  And believe me, he was my IT support for many, many, many years.
• 1:38:12
  I bet just you know, our, did our first website and all of that, but it, I think
• 1:38:16
  we need to tap into that, wanting to give back what gives meaning to life.
• 1:38:22
  Mm-hmm.
• 1:38:22
  People most people feel good making a financial donation, a donation
• 1:38:28
  of their time, talent, treasure.
• 1:38:31
  And, but we, we need to be networking with people and giving
• 1:38:34
  them opportunities so that.
• 1:38:37
  A center, a riding center can develop in a balanced way so that you can
• 1:38:42
  have a budget, so you can be able to hire the right people at the right
• 1:38:47
  time and pay them a living wage.
• 1:38:50
  And not just a living wage, a competitive wage.
• 1:38:53
  And yeah, I mean, we could talk for days, so this is needed.
• 1:38:57
  I've been part of just kind of a movement within path, trying to educate some
• 1:39:01
  people on how to think strategically.
• 1:39:04
  Mm-hmm.
• 1:39:05
  Melissa Connor: And some of these business side.
• 1:39:07
  I'm always happy to talk to people, love connecting with people around the country
• 1:39:11
  or around the world if, and so would love to continue those conversations.
• 1:39:15
  But I think you're right, more of a think tank is needed.
• 1:39:18
  A, a greater support system is needed so that people aren't just
• 1:39:23
  out on their own trying to do it.
• 1:39:24
  And then all of a sudden they realize, wait, I didn't, I didn't do X, Y,
• 1:39:29
  and Z and now I'm in danger of, you know, losing my 5 0 1 C3 nonprofit
• 1:39:34
  status here in America, or, you know, or something like that because I
• 1:39:38
  forgot to file a right piece of paper.
• 1:39:40
  So there needs to be somebody paying attention to that side of things too.
• 1:39:45
  And thinking 10, 20, 50 years down the road, because this industry
• 1:39:49
  is growing is the fastest growing.
• 1:39:51
  It really is in one industry.
• 1:39:53
  Rupert Isaacson: No, it really is.
• 1:39:53
  It really is.
• 1:39:54
  And it's only going to grow more.
• 1:39:55
  Melissa Connor: Yeah.
• 1:39:56
  So we just need to equip people to, to sustain it into the future.
• 1:40:01
  Rupert Isaacson: So their listeners where, where's, what's your five year plan?
• 1:40:05
  What's your 10 year plan?
• 1:40:06
  What's your 20 year plan?
• 1:40:07
  Actually, let's not use the word plan.
• 1:40:09
  Let's use the word dream.
• 1:40:10
  Dream.
• 1:40:11
  Yeah.
• 1:40:12
  Because yeah.
• 1:40:13
  What are you excited?
• 1:40:14
  Where are you excited to go?
• 1:40:15
  Not where do you feel you ought to go?
• 1:40:18
  Or I guess we should go over here.
• 1:40:21
  What, what makes your heart light up?
• 1:40:26
  With, because I've generally found that.
• 1:40:30
  Effectiveness seems to follow excitement.
• 1:40:32
  Mm-hmm.
• 1:40:33
  Anything that I've not been so excited about, I might have been able to pull
• 1:40:38
  it off, but it always felt that it came at a massive cost of energy.
• 1:40:44
  You know?
• 1:40:44
  And as you know, that the stuff one's excited about, one just doesn't even
• 1:40:47
  notice really, the work one puts in.
• 1:40:48
  It's just like, it almost feels recreational.
• 1:40:52
  Melissa Connor: Absolutely.
• 1:40:53
  And that's, that's what happened to me.
• 1:40:55
  I was so excited when I started as a volunteer.
• 1:40:58
  I found myself thinking about the horses, thinking about the students, thinking
• 1:41:02
  about how, what if I was the instructor in that class, what would I teach?
• 1:41:07
  How would I do that?
• 1:41:08
  How would I, yeah.
• 1:41:09
  How would I condition this horse?
• 1:41:11
  How would I, what would I, so then just grad doors start opening up,
• 1:41:15
  you know, when there's a need.
• 1:41:16
  And then I had a chance to, to fill some of those needs.
• 1:41:21
  And it, it, it did, it felt like a, it was a passion.
• 1:41:24
  I couldn't not do it.
• 1:41:28
  Rupert Isaacson: Yes.
• 1:41:29
  That, that grabbing by the
• 1:41:35
  collar, that seems to happen with life and we get pulled in.
• 1:41:39
  Yeah.
• 1:41:39
  I'm very glad it happened to you because you're doing extremely,
• 1:41:43
  extremely good work out there.
• 1:41:45
  And work I look for, I just look really look forward to seeing how you develop it.
• 1:41:50
  And you're sort of in that geographic hub in the Midwest there that what you
• 1:41:53
  do can really radiate out and influence.
• 1:41:57
  So we are sort of right now at the two hour mark.
• 1:42:00
  Do you have any last thoughts?
• 1:42:04
  Do you do, is there anything that you would like listeners to go away with from
• 1:42:12
  their time with you or that you would really encourage them to think about?
• 1:42:16
  Not every, you know, there's newbies listening here, there's seasoned
• 1:42:20
  campaigners and all points in between.
• 1:42:24
  What would your closing,
• 1:42:27
  Melissa Connor: Another great question.
• 1:42:28
  I, I love I've loved getting to know you.
• 1:42:33
  I've loved the Horse Boy method since I learned about it, you know, 15 years
• 1:42:40
  ago or so when your book came out.
• 1:42:42
  And even though I was in Path International, I think there's a so
• 1:42:48
  much that we can learn from each other.
• 1:42:52
  So I choose to continue to learn, continue to kind of keep an open mind.
• 1:42:59
  Hmm.
• 1:43:00
  I loved learning the Teke method and I'm so excited to incorporate that more
• 1:43:06
  fully into our conditioning program and.
• 1:43:09
  Into our service offerings at Renew.
• 1:43:13
  And that is a whole new thought.
• 1:43:15
  Like, I didn't know that that was gonna be something I'd be excited about.
• 1:43:19
  So I think just being open to learning from those who have
• 1:43:26
  paved the way ahead of us.
• 1:43:28
  I also know when something doesn't resonate with my core values and.
• 1:43:35
  And, and that's okay.
• 1:43:37
  But I also think just sharing, having having your people, have
• 1:43:40
  your team, have your community.
• 1:43:42
  And it can be, it can be global, like you said.
• 1:43:44
  It doesn't have to just be geographically in one location, but people that
• 1:43:48
  you can lean on, discuss with bounce ideas off of keep learning, keep
• 1:43:55
  growing because I'm excited about the future of equine assisted services.
• 1:43:59
  I think, I think we're just at the tip of the iceberg.
• 1:44:02
  I think.
• 1:44:03
  I think that these program offerings, every person who deals with a disability
• 1:44:10
  or a challenge to their daily living, I think deserves the chance to have a
• 1:44:14
  meaningful interaction with a horse and that can potentially change their life.
• 1:44:20
  And our vision statement at Renew is positive life change
• 1:44:23
  with every horse experience.
• 1:44:25
  Mm-hmm.
• 1:44:25
  And we try to have that.
• 1:44:28
  Caring environment, positive energy, so that there's a chance for that life
• 1:44:34
  transformation because of what we do.
• 1:44:36
  And I think we all, all of us in this world have the opportunity
• 1:44:39
  to offer that out to the world.
• 1:44:41
  And that just excites me.
• 1:44:44
  Rupert Isaacson: Brilliant.
• 1:44:44
  Yeah.
• 1:44:45
  Stay curious.
• 1:44:45
  Basically.
• 1:44:46
  Melissa Connor: Basically, yeah.
• 1:44:48
  Rupert Isaacson: Keep challenging yourself, keep learning new stuff.
• 1:44:50
  Yeah.
• 1:44:51
  I couldn't, I couldn't agree more.
• 1:44:52
  Absolutely.
• 1:44:52
  Couldn't agree more.
• 1:44:54
  And there's so much new, exciting stuff happening out there, like the stuff with
• 1:44:57
  Lynn Thomas with Arenas for Change and
• 1:44:59
  Melissa Connor: Oh yeah.
• 1:45:00
  Rupert Isaacson: The mental health and the, the, the way which the,
• 1:45:04
  I, I, I, I feel that the field is both broadening and each Yeah.
• 1:45:13
  It's like there is now much more cross-fertilization happening and I
• 1:45:17
  think that's people voting with their feet, you know, where some of the
• 1:45:21
  organizations were some years ago, quite.
• 1:45:27
  Not so open to that sort of thing.
• 1:45:29
  But I think a lot of the members were just like, well, hold on.
• 1:45:32
  We are interested in everything.
• 1:45:33
  That's why we sort of got into you in the first place, you know, because we
• 1:45:36
  are generally interested, why wouldn't we be interested in five or six things?
• 1:45:40
  And I always encourage, you know, any place I go to do trainings, it's,
• 1:45:44
  please don't just do horse boy tech and stuff, please do 5, 6, 7, 8 other
• 1:45:49
  things because you just don't know who's gonna walk through that door.
• 1:45:52
  You need more resources than my stuff you need, you know, that's just common
• 1:45:57
  sense 1, 1 1 needs a, a sort of faculty of, of, of, of resources, you know,
• 1:46:03
  just like a university would or, yeah.
• 1:46:06
  So
• 1:46:06
  absolutely.
• 1:46:07
  Rupert Isaacson: I think you sort of represent that to me, I think that that
• 1:46:12
  positive outlook 'cause that that positive outlook's actually the effective outlook.
• 1:46:15
  It's actually the practical outlook that just, I
• 1:46:20
  Melissa Connor: like it, like you said, it's a, it's a.
• 1:46:23
  Service driven.
• 1:46:24
  It's about the child, it's about the adult, it's about the the
• 1:46:28
  person coming to us for services.
• 1:46:30
  It's not about us.
• 1:46:32
  So have to stay humble and curious.
• 1:46:36
  Rupert Isaacson: So how do people find you?
• 1:46:37
  Give us the website.
• 1:46:38
  Melissa Connor: Oh, sure.
• 1:46:40
  It's renew, R-E-N-E-W-T-R-C dot org.
• 1:46:45
  Rupert Isaacson: Renew trc.org.
• 1:46:47
  We'll have that obviously in the notes.
• 1:46:49
  Mm-hmm.
• 1:46:49
  Any other stuff?
• 1:46:50
  Instagram's Facebooky things.
• 1:46:52
  Melissa Connor: Yep.
• 1:46:53
  We're on, we're on Facebook and Instagram.
• 1:46:55
  Renew Therapeutic Writing Center.
• 1:46:57
  Rupert Isaacson: Perfect.
• 1:46:57
  Fall into
• 1:46:58
  Melissa Connor: Michigan.
• 1:46:58
  Yep.
• 1:46:59
  Rupert Isaacson: Alright.
• 1:46:59
  And they can email you through there.
• 1:47:01
  Contact you through, yep.
• 1:47:02
  Brilliant.
• 1:47:04
  Melissa Connor: Yep.
• 1:47:04
  Alright.
• 1:47:04
  Absolutely.
• 1:47:04
  Well,
• 1:47:05
  Rupert Isaacson: we'll do this again.
• 1:47:06
  Hopefully let's, let's see how things go in a year.
• 1:47:09
  Come back on.
• 1:47:09
  Tell us where you're at.
• 1:47:11
  Melissa Connor: Alright.
• 1:47:11
  Sounds great.
• 1:47:13
  Thank you so much, Rupert.
• 1:47:14
  I enjoyed it.
• 1:47:15
  My pleasure.
• 1:47:15
  Rupert Isaacson: Thank you for coming on.
• 1:47:16
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• 1:47:20
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