Jade Owen
July 08, 2013 4:40 PM
Horse Lovers' Club meeting! by Jade Owen
For the past couple of years, Jade had held the horse lovers' club meetings every month or two, and had varied the location. As the meetings were sporadic (owing in large part to Jade's incurable disorganisation - she simply advertised a meeting when she remembered to do so), they were always preceded by notices around the school instructing the students where and when to meet. The meetings had never been very formal. mostly they consisted of the members present talking about horses. Anything and everything had already been covered: tales and anecdotes of personal experiences, re-capping of new species discovered in CoMC class, sharing photographs and pictures, recommendations of fiction about horses, discussing non-fiction textbooks and magazine articles, and debating theories and techniques relating to grooming, braking, riding, and dressage. After a couple of meetings, Jade had begun to compile a scrapbook of pictures and articles that the members had brought to the group, and it was turning into an informative document, as well as a shrine to some of the most wonderful creatures on the planet.Today was Thursday, and it was five o'clock in the evening. Jade imagined her group would meet for an hour, leaving them plenty of time to eat afterwards. She had selected the gardens for the meeting - other venues she had used included the library and Cascade Hall, as well as the Mars studio on a couple of occasions - because it was a sunny, warm evening and she thought it would be a nice change to be outdoors.
Jade smiled at everyone when they arrived, and introduced a new concept: a register. She encouraged everyone to write their name, House and year as they arrived so that she would have a record. Now they had plans for future meetings, the fifth year felt a little planning was necessary, though she intended to keep it to a bear minimum. "Hey, everyone, just sit down somewhere comfy," she encouraged the group. When it looked as though people had settled and were waiting for further instruction, Jade also sat down, forming a very rough circle of bodies, and grinned.
"Well it looks like we have some new members this year, so welcome to you," she said, rather enjoying playing the role of leader. "I'm Jade, and I organise the meetings, but nobody is really in charge here," she clarified. "We're all just here because we share a love of horses. Which is why," her smile became a little more mysterious, "you're all going to love the news I have. I had a meeting the Headmistress K-J, and we're hopefully going to be having some up close and personal exotic breed sessions with Professor Meade." She waited for the reactions to this great news before continuing on. "But even better than that, we're going to go on a field trip next year to a horse ranch!" The excitement was radiating off her, as well as being blatantly evident in her voice. "So as well as our usual meetings this year, we're going to have to do some activities to raise enough money to cover our trip next year." Secretly, Jade thought that just a couple of the richest members' families could fund the whole expedition, but she wasn't a charity case: if there was money to be raised, then Jade wanted to earn it.
Having said her part, the Pecari settled back, resting her weight on her hands placed on the ground behind her, and waited eagerly for the input of her fellow equine enthusiasts.
Subthreads: Huzzah! (TAG- Jade) by Abigail Thornton
Horse's Lover Club questions. by Aria Yale with Jade Owen
Sigh. <i>Fundraisers?</i> by Alex D'Alesandro
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Horse Lovers' Club meeting!
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Abigail Thornton
July 12, 2013 11:17 PM
Huzzah! (TAG- Jade) by Abigail Thornton
Abi knew her sister wasn’t a big fan of Jade’s. But Jade never really bothered her. Jade brought her the horse club and that was what was mattered and counted to her. When she saw the signups she put her name right on the top. Anything animal, horses especially, made Abi much more comfortable than any human interaction. Sure, the third year had never really spoken to Jade straight out, she kept to herself and spoke of her horse experiences more than to people through all the other horse club meetings.This year, Abi thought she’d better change that up a little bit. She was a little bit early for the first meeting for the main reason of talking to Jade. It was a Thursday a little bit before 5pm when Abi walked into the Gardens to meet up with the others. She clearly wasn’t the only one who thought to be a little bit early, so she didn’t really get her chance to talk to Jade just yet, but she figured it would still be okay if she spoke to her later on.
Abi heard Jade mention signing their names in and she went off to the page and wrote, Abigail Thornton, Third Year, Crotalus before Jade kept on talking, having them sit down and welcoming them all. When Jade went on with the announcements Abi almost stood up and danced with excitement.
Almost.
She kept herself in her spot, but she grinned excitedly at the prospect of seeing exotic breeds and maybe going to a Ranch! When Jade sat back down again, Abi got up and walked over to her. “Jade, that is SO exciting and awesome!! Do you know what breeds we’re gonna get to see? Or what Ranch we may be going to?” Abi’s eyes lit up the whole area in the gardens where the group sat with her excitement as she waited for Jade to answer.
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Huzzah! (TAG- Jade)
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Aria Yale
July 14, 2013 8:37 PM
Horse's Lover Club questions. by Aria Yale
Aria had joined the Horse Club back when it had first begun. Aria was an animal lover and this club was really the only one that ventured towards that. Although she did not actually ride horses the way some of the others did as she felt that was mistreating them, she did enjoy watching them and found them to be beautiful creatures. Learning about other horse-like creatures was also fun for her and it connected her with some of her peers (even in the minutest of ways). Although she could not necessarily give much to the topic as her experiences, it was nice to listen to everyone else’s.Coming to the first meeting of the year, Aria tried to find a seat that wasn’t necessarily in the middle of everyone, but still somewhat in the ‘circle’ of others. Aria was having a difficult assimilating this current year. She had started to isolate herself entirely from everyone except when she was forced to work with them in lessons or well, when the clubs she had joined were meeting.
This year seemed to be a different year for the club as well. They would actually have a chance to work directly with the creatures outside of Care of Magical Creatures. She thought that would be amazing! The community only had non-magical horses. Not that such a thing was terrible, their horses ran free in their fields. They were rescue horses or something, some story that she couldn’t really remember about how they were taken from a ranch because they were malnourished and neglected and the community took them in and brought life back into them. Now they were free and cared for. But they certainly weren’t winged horses or even a Kelpie (as scary as those were).
But the news of the Horse Ranch really excited Aria. She wasn’t sure what a Horse Ranch was other than a place specifically for horses and she had to wonder if they were also rescued horses like those in her community only magical. That would be absolutely fun! Of course, she wasn’t really sure what a fundraiser was. She understood the concept of it, they did something to raise money, but what sort of things did they do here? At home, they sold organic fruits and vegetables. Sometimes flowers and herbs or vegan potions if they had an influx of them.
Aria raised her hand and spoke when indicated to. “I’m sorry, what do you do for a fundraiser?” She asked them. “At home, to obtain funds, we sold our organic foods and other organic items, but, I do not think this ground is suitable for farming or that anyone here would buy them since the school obtains their own ingredients.” Aria explained. “What is it that students would want to purchase to help us raise funds?” Perhaps she sounded naive, but she still felt that it was always better to ask them remain ignorant.
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Horse's Lover Club questions.
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Alex D'Alesandro
July 22, 2013 11:39 PM
Sigh. <i>Fundraisers?</i> by Alex D'Alesandro
It was on a whim that Alexandra decided to sign up for the Horse Lovers’ Club. She realized she had been almost painfully unsociable during her first few years at Sonora, aside from spending time with her best friend Honey, and wanted to put herself out there a bit more. Though she found many people somewhat inferior, she figured that she could at least pretend to be nice to them. It never failed in helping her get what she wanted before.Alex’s love for animals is what made joining the Horse Lovers’ Club attractive in the first place. Her mother’s side of the family, the Chevals who resided in France, owned a well-recognized horse ranch. Alex had been horseback riding when she was younger, and missed it greatly. Though the club may not provide much opportunity to go horseback riding, Alex figured it was better than nothing.
The day of the first meeting, Alex made her way to the Gardens and found many people sitting around in a circle, waiting for the meeting to begin. She signed her name in the register as Alex D’Alesandro, Crotalus, Third Year and took a seat in the circle. After some time, Jade introduced herself and began telling them news. Apparently, the fact that they would be seeing exotic breeds of horses was something new. Also, Jade was hoping that they could take a field trip next year to visit a ranch.
At the mention of the field trip to a ranch, Alex’s hopes rose and her eyes lit up. This did not last long, for Jade then mentioned that they would have to raise the money in order to visit the ranch. That sounded like a lot of unnecessary hard work. Alex sighed, and listened as other members began asking Jade questions.
She obviously had not been paying much attention, for she failed to realize a Thornton was present at the meeting until the girl had asked a question. Not just any Thornton either, but Abigail her roommate, whom she had been able to avoid like the plague until now. Honestly, everywhere Alex went she ran into a Thornton. It was starting to get quite old. Hopefully, Abigail was not as annoying as her older sister was.
Alex listened as people bombarded Jade with questions, and sighed to herself. If only she could just offer a donation to the club. That would probably get her out of all the work.
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Alex D'Alesandro
Sigh. <i>Fundraisers?</i>
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Jade Owen
July 24, 2013 3:47 PM
Some answers, maybe, I think. by Jade Owen
(OOC: For ease of interpretation, I am assuming that people have spoken in the order posted, i.e. that Abigail spoke first, followed by Aria. It makes more sense to me to have Jade's conversation in one thread, so I have replied to both here, but others are more than welcome to post in reply to Alex's thread.)Jade was happy to witness some of her own excitement reflected in some of the other club members. Though to be fair, if they weren't excited about the notion of spending more time with horses, they were in the wrong club. "I don't know any details yet," she said to Abi's questionning, still unable to wipe the delighted smile off her face. "I've talked to Professor K-J but we didn't sort anything final. I'll talk to Professor Meade about classes, and I'll post any new information around the school as and when I have it." Jade was hardly the most organised person around when it came to holding her meetings, but so long as they got together relatively frequently then she didn't forsee this as a problem.
The fifth year had been hoping that some other club members might produce some excellent ideas on how they could raise enough money to go to a ranch. Aria sort of had ideas, but not necessarily ones they could use. She asked, perhaps rhetorically, what they could do for a fundraiser, and Jade admitted she was stumped. "That's an excellent question," the Pecari said, speaking sufficiently loudly to draw others' attention back if it had begun to wander. "We need to figure out what we can provide for free, or at a relatively low cost, that staff and students will want to buy from us." If this was the baking club, the way forward would be obvious. Jade might ask Waverly if they could perhaps have a cross-over event, and split the takings, seeing as her roommate was in this club, too.
"Or, it doesn't have to be goods, it can be services," Jade thought aloud. "We could, I dunno, clean cauldrons or something for a fee." Admittedly that didn't sound like a great deal of fun, but if she was doing it to go to a horse ranch then Jade thought she could tolerate the labour. "Oh, maybe we could have a stand at the fair, too," she suddenly remembered this year's Midsummer event. "We could sell lemonade, or have a game with prizes." Jade reached behind her for her book bag, and withdrew from it a charcoal pencil and a battered bound parchment journal. She flicked to a clean page and began to make notes on these fundraising plans. "Does anyone else have any ideas?"
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Some answers, maybe, I think.
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