The British Young Drivers met at the Unicorn Trust in Gloucestershire on the 29th of January, by kind permission of Sydney Smith, for the annual on foot day.

It was a great day with three guest speakers: Rosanna Walter-Symons, Emily Ham and James Campbell.

The day started with everyone catching up, followed by our first speaker Rosanna. She gave us a talk on ‘Coping with Adversity’. It was great to see how everyone deals with bad times during competition and during training and our everyday routines.

Some of us will fix problems and focus of solving a problem, whereas others would avoid the problem and find ways of not resolving the issue. With the best being facing the problem and dealing with it.

Our next guest speaker was Emily Ham, giving us a talk on ‘Getting the most out of our coaches’. This was informative and gave a full picture of what coaches do.

We also had three activities, allowing us as drivers to think what’s most important to us when competing from fun to winning, health and fitness and more. Some of us found it difficult as all the points are true and all go hand in hand.

Once the two talks had finished everyone sat down for lunch, having another catch up before the afternoons activities.

After lunch, we had a talk about our views from the 2016 season and looking ahead to the coming 2017 season. This year, it involves the annual Young Drivers Championships is moving to a new venue at Sandringham. This will give us juniors a chance to drive a national/international course.

Lastly, we had a carriage maintenance talk/demo by James Campbell. This was a great insight on how to look after and check our carriages. He showed us how to change brake pads, bearings and gave us tips on how to maintain our carriages. Not to mention a few spares we should always carry in our lorries!

On behalf of all Young Drivers, I would like to thank Sydney for having us at the Unicorn Trust, as always. Also, thanks to Mary-Jane Campbell for organizing a great on foot day and to the guests Rosanna Walters-Symons, Emily Ham and James Campbell.

Coming up for Young Drivers - The BYD Easter training clinic in April