Our first Yarcombe Terrier Races event

This weekend we experienced our first ever Yarcombe Terrier Races event. When we were looking for properties back in 2019, we’d seen all the advertising for the event but, like everything else, it has been cancelled due to covid for the past two years since we moved. 

The Terrier Races is an annual fundraising event in aid of our local church fund, with proceeds going both to the church and to community projects where possible. Most of the organisers have been doing it for a fair few years, so we took the opportunity to provide them with extra support both with the organisation over the last six months, as well as at the event itself – setting the site up during the week, and taking it down on Sunday. We also both worked behind the bar throughout the event, making sure attendees were sufficiently watered and helping to make things run smoothly. It’s taken up quite a lot of our free time but has certainly been worth it!

This was the 46th year of the races, having been founded back in 1974 by a local villager to raise money to pay the church common fund, and then run by him for many years. It attracts around a thousand people each year, from local residents within the Blackdown Hills to holidaymakers visiting the area and looking for a fun family day out. And with 9 dog races this year (mostly terrier races with two ‘other breed’ races), and lots of games for children and adults (bouncy castles, football competitions and skittles to name a few), it really is a full day out! This year we introduced our first ever market stalls – an opportunity to showcase local craft talent and help promote their businesses, which seemed to work out well for everyone.

This was the first year helping for a lot of our volunteers, and several others had taken on new roles where previous people had stepped down and just wanted to enjoy the event (e.g. running the hot food), and it feels like we did a pretty good job in knitting everything together. There are always lessons you can learn, but on the whole everyone seemed to enjoy themselves, and our new Marketing lead did a fantastic job in bringing in new visitors, it was so busy!

We’re really looking forward to having paying guests to stay who we can promote the event to, and use our rental properties to increase footfall to the event (albeit small in the grand scheme of things). It’s also a great opportunity to use our skills to support the community by raising money for the church and local initiatives, and we’ve definitely got to know a lot more people in the village (and surrounding area) over the last week!!