Beccy Barrett has branched out and gone into “showjump restoration.” As I am sure you can imagine, the showjumps take quite a hammering with the usage they get, so we have a rolling maintenance programme which includes sanding them down and re-painting them. With the enforced lockdown, this seemed a worthwhile job that could be undertaken whilst adhering to social distancing measures. Beccy has swapped the award-winning Rolle Estate Office at Bicton for the salubrious storage barn to commence with “project paint”.
Day 1 saw her rearrange the setup to enable greater productivity. She had Matt and Bart moving things around for her in the workshop to optimise her setup. This included making space for Pixie, who was set to be her trusty co-worker and see off anyone who dared approach the storage barn. Following day 2, when a glitch in the system resulted in two newly painted poles falling to the ground and getting covered in dust and grit, the production line was adapted and refined to prevent repeat disasters. Whoever knew she would prove to be such an expert in workplace efficiency.
Having now painted in the region of 100 poles, which all had to be sanded, under coated and then top coated, Beccy has perfected her brush technique. I haven’t quite got the heart to tell her that she is still on the schooling set, and that we have 3 competition sets for her to move on to. This may prove a false starter as paint has become increasingly difficult to source since the lockdown began. Our competition sets require bespoke paint as they are different shades of red, blue, green and yellow, so she may yet get a reprieve if we are unable to source the right paint. When we do eventually get up and running again, clients will be in for a treat when they hire the arena as the schooling set will be transformed. In the meantime, if anyone out there has any paint contacts, please do get in touch so that we can keep Beccy supplied with materials to crack on with the competition sets.