Brandywine Valley

Driving Club

Club Activities

General meetings for all members and visitors are held at 7 PM on the second Tuesday of February, April, June, August, and October at New Bolton Center in Kennett Square, PA, in the main lecture auditorium. The December meeting is the Holiday Party. These meetings are designed to further the education of all drivers, with special emphasis on the less experienced whip.

Click here for directions to New Bolton Center. (Please use your browser's Back button to return to this page).

Throughout the year, The Brandywine Valley Driving Club holds recreational pleasure drives and other activities, generally hosted by members at their homes or nearby public facilities.  A typical pleasure drive may be between 6 and 15 miles over rural (real "country") roads. 

Opportunities for enriching your knowledge in all areas of driving are a strong suit of the club.  Driving clinics offer learning experiences for the novice to advanced level driver. If you wish to attend any of the clinics, it is important to register. Clinics may be cancelled if they are undersubscribed.
 

Club Members at the 2008 Super Volunteer Clinic
photos:  Linda & Jay Willis

The 2010 Pleasure Driving Show will be held June 13 at Fair Hill at the Gallaher Road location. The Pleasure Driving Show is recognized by the ADS (American Driving Society) and is open to both club members and non-members.

In addition to more than 30 classes for drivers, spectators can also browse the boutiques and enjoy luncheon food and snacks available throughout the day.

For more information, use the e-mail contact here.

CLICK HERE for 2009 show results

CLICK HERE for past show results

Kail Palmer-Miller driving at the 2009 Brandywine Carriage Driving Show

The Teddy Bears Picnic is a one-day fun combined test/driving trial open to club members only.

CLICK HERE for 2009 Teddy Bears Picnic results

Club Member Rich Forfa competing in the Training Single Horse division at the 2008 Teddy Bear Picnic

Photo Courtesy of Nancy Thorington

The BVDC “Trot & Track” program is for all who drive.  In this program, you keep a record of the time you spend driving your horse or pony, and goal-hours achievement will be recognized at 25, 50, 100, 250, 500, 750, and 1000 hours of driving time plus all "century" marks above 250 hours. Any time you spend driving, EXCEPT shows and other competitions, will count towards your “Trot & Track” hours.  The hours you track do not have to be related to a club-organized activity. The “Trot & Track” allows members from all over to participate at their convenience. Hours continue to accumulate in subsequent years.

To participate in the “Trot & Track” program, you need to be a BVDC member, and register to take part in this program. To apply, go to the Forms page for the application form. Additional tracking forms are also available on the Forms page.

All members in good standing receive the club newsletter, Driving Lines, published monthly.  The club also offers the newsletter electronically as a download from the website. This is a pdf file, usually about 750 kbytes in size. To view the newsletter, you will need the free Adobe Acrobat Reader on your computer.

When the monthly newsletter is available, download subscribers will receive an e-mail with the link to the download page, at which time the file may be downloaded and saved.

Members who elect to receive their newsletter electronically will NOT receive a copy through the U.S. Mail but will have access to the newsletter usually several days before the U.S. Mail copy is delivered to others. You must be a member in good standing of the Brandywine Valley Driving Club to subscribe. You can subscribe to receive the newsletter electronically by sending an email message to the MEMBERSHIP CHAIRPERSON with your membership name in the message body. Be sure to type your name as it appears in the membership directory in the message body of the email, and click send. That's all there is to it.

What else is going on this year? Check out the BVDC calendar