climbing frames - Preparing Your Garden For A Climbing Frame

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Preparing Your Garden For A Climbing Frame

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Often when people buy a climbing frames it is the first time they have ever bought such a big structure for their garden. Our climbing frames have a 10 year guarantee which, by any standards, is quite a long time. For that reason it is important that you prepare your garden for the arrival of your playset.

  • We would of course advise that you have ample space in your garden for the climbing frame you have chosen. Check the dimension of the frame against the size of your garden We suggest a 1.5m perimeter around any swing set to give little ones space to swing freely and race around it. This is of course a guideline and not a requirement.
  • Ensure there is a clear path for delivery men to carry your goods round to the back of the house for you (2 man delivery). Having them clamber over things carrying heavy goods is unnecessarily dangerous and they may refuse to do it.
  • Make sure all debris, overgrown bushes and long grass is cleared before your playset arrives. Doing this afterwards may be a lot trickier.
  • Of course in an ideal world all gardens would be perfectly flat but we know that they’re not. This isn’t the end of the world. Your garden doesn’t have to be pitch perfect but if you have a definite incline we would suggest placing the legs of the climbing frame into the ground so the set ends up being level. Although you must bear in mind little ones may catch their legs when they are swinging and having the wood in the damp ground may cause it to rot quicker.
  • Some of our customers like to add rubber matting, mulch or bark around their climbing frames. This is by no means essential. Although we strongly suggest you do not place your swing set on concrete.If you do want to put some kind of soft flooring down underneath the climbing frame it is best to do this after the set is built and in place.
  • If you are lucky enough to have several spots in your garden where your playset could go it is probably a good idea to place the climbing frame away from a neighbour’s fence and in your eye line. So in line with a kitchen window or patio doors is normally quite useful.

  • We like to think our climbing frames are fairly low maintenance. Getting the position, surrounding area and grounding right before installation will save you a lot of trouble in the future.

Selwood At The Royal Norfolk County Show

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Selwood Products will be taking a range of our climbing frames, trampolines and Yardistry structures, screens and accents to the Royal Norfolk Show June 27th and 28th. With the wind putting a stop to our fun at the Suffolk Show earlier this month we are excited to spend two sunny days at The Royal Norfolk Show (fingers crossed). The Norfolk Show is always fantastic fun and great for families. There are all kinds of animals – goats, sheep, cow, pigs, heavy horses and even miniature horses. There is also family entertainment all day as well as a vintage fun fair complete with Ferris wheel and helter skelter.

We love getting out and about and meeting our potential customers. We now sell our climbing frames, Yardistry and trampolines direct from the Selwood Shop and it’s great for people to get to touch and feel the products before they buy them. We will be at stand 235, Avenue 8 between 1st and 2nd drive.

We don’t want to blow our own trumpet but we were Highly Commended for the best non-agricultural stand at the Suffolk show. See below for proof. So we are definitely worth a visit.

Team Selwood Jubilee Weekend

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Team Selwood are heading for a busy weekend and making the most of the Jubilee bank holiday, and once again we will be heading across the UK to a wide range of shows.

Tim Davies – Showjumper is heading to the glorious setting of the Bolesworth Castle Estate, Chester from June 1st-4th with a strong team of horses to compete in a range of classes including the Bolesworth Classic;

Hilary Boss – Eventer with Selwood Zabala De Foja will be heading to Eridge Park Horse Trials, Tunbridge Wells, Kent on June 2nd. Hilary Boss will be heading to Little Downham Horse Trials held at Ely eventing centre, Cambridgeshire on Tuesday June 5th to compete in BE Novice.

Jess Dutton – Showing – Jess is heading to the Midland Counties show with Ole for a HOYS 2012 qualifier.

Hilary Boss, Harry Beard and Jessica Dutton will be heading to Keysoe EC, Bedfordshire to compete in a unaffiliated Hunter Trial on Jubilee Monday; we hope to have some celebrations too! Hilary will be riding Andy Beard’s youngster Grey Star, Jess is taking Mosstown Ronaldo and Harry Beard will be partnering Dawn Performance.

Selwood Products Sponsored Lee Bowyer Released

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As reported recently – Selwood Products Sponsored Player Lee Bowyer is released by Ipswich Town. (use the picture of you and Lee) Selwood are open to suggestions of who they should sponsor for the 2012/13 Season/


Here is the latest release from TWTD (The independent Ipswich town website):

Town boss Paul Jewell has revealed that midfielder Lee Bowyer will not be offered a new contract with the Blues. The 35-year-old former Leeds man joined Town on a free transfer from Birmingham last summer.

Jewell said: “We’re not offering Lee Bowyer a contract. I’ve spoken with him at length over the last couple of weeks.

“He’s a terrific lad, a terrific pro, he’s been really good around the place. He’s good with the young players and I think he’s got a good career ahead of him coaching, but he wants to continue playing and I don’t think there’ll be a shortage of takers for him.

“He goes with our best wishes and, as I say, I think he’ll have a good career as a coach because he’s got terrific knowledge and he’s really good character, good for the young players.”
The Blues boss admits that that that might surprise a few people: “I have to say you have these perceptions of people before you meet them and I wouldn’t have had him down as being like that, but he’s been terrific.

“He’s a winner. Everything he does he wants to win and he’s a good role model for young players. But he wants to continue playing and we just feel that maybe we’re going to go down a younger route.”

The Town boss says there have been no new firm developments on any of the other players who are out of contract at the end of the season.

Bowyer made 24 starts and five sub appearances for the Blues, scoring twice, including the last-minute winner against his former side West Ham at Upton Park.

Who shall we sponsor next?

Team Selwood Weekend Results – 26th/27th May

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Over this gloriously hot weekend (26thth/27th May) Team Selwood were competing in their respective disciplines around the UK with some great successes. Read on to hear about our results!

Hilary Boss, and the Andrew Beard owned, Grey Star competed in their third BE 80 at Shelford Manor Horse Trials.
Hilary Boss and Grey Star proved their skill and determination and rode into 3rd place, finishing on their dressage score of 36.0 with nothing to add from the show jumping and XC phases. This is Star’s top result so far and a great achievement for Team Selwood.

Hilary Boss and Selwood Zabala De Foja travelled to the glorious setting of Houghton Hall, Norfolk, for the Open Eventers Grand Prix – a class consisting of 27 jumps both show jumps and cross country fences with the aim being to complete in the fastest time possible. Hilary and Selwood Zabala De Foja finished in 1min.45s thus finishing 8th to the defending champion Matthew wright and many other professional riders.

Harry Beard went with Millfield School’s Equestrian team to to Bryanston School EC, Dorset, with 2 of his rides, Selwood Penny and Dawn Performance (Iceman). Harry competed in the Inter-schools’ show jumping competition where his school team was placed 3rd and 4th.

Watch this space for Team Selwood’s next performance results.

Selwood Products at the Suffolk County Show

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Following on from our great success at the Newark and Nottinghamshire County Show we are taking a selection of our climbing frames, one of our JumpKing Air trampolines and a selection of Yardistry garden structures to the Suffolk county show June 7th & 8th. Find us at stand 309.

County shows are always a fantastic day out for the entire family and of course it will be a rare opportunity to see our products in the flesh. The Suffolk Show is a long running and hugely popular event and this year there are a few new fun additions. For the first time ever there will be entertainment from the Living Statue Company as well as an upmarket shopping village called Fifth Avenue. The Suffolk Show is also just 1 of 12 locations with the ‘in the zone’ interactive exhibition.This is a fantastic way to get people of all ages involved and engaged with the science of the human body in relation to movement and sport.

A fully comprehensive list of the climbing frames, trampolines and Yardistry we plan to show will be up on the blog in due course so keep checking back to see what you can expect.

Team Selwood Facebook Competition

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Team Selwood are having such a fantastic response to our social pages Facebook and Twitter that we would like to say a huge thank you to everyone who has followed, liked, facebooked and tweeted us in the last few weeks.

As a thank you we have hooked up with Equiport – The UK’s leading manufacturer of equestrian equipment for both horse and rider – and will be offering £50 worth of vouchers to one of our lucky Facebook friends once we reach 500 likes. Share, like, comment, spread the word as much as you can.

Like us here

Team Selwood May 25th -27th

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Team Selwood are delighted that the sun has finally hit the UK and all horses, riders and supporters are once again raring to go on both the eventing and show jumping circuits this weekend- 26-27th May.

Team Selwood’s Show jumper, Tim Davies will be training at his base near Bury St Edmunds in Preparation for the International Grand Prix classes at Suffolk Show on 7-8th June.

Hilary Boss and Selwood Zabala De Foja will be heading to the Subaru Houghton International Horse Trials, Norfolk on May 25th to compete in the Eventers Grand Prix Class; every second will count as the pair will have to negotiate a course of 7 show jumps followed by 7 XC jumps and then 7 show jumps, the fastest time wins with £100 up for grabs for the winner.

To see last year Grand Prix action click here

Harry Beard, our academy student, will be heading to Bryanston School EC, Dorset (May 26th and 27th) with his two rides Selwood Penny and Dawn Performance (Iceman) to show jump in the 70cm and 90cm classes.

If you have a chance to see us in action at one of the competition venues we would very much welcome your support

Results from all shows will be posted on Monday. Don’t forget to check back on our success on Facebook and Twitter.

Team Selwood Official Announcement

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*Selwood are the proud sponsors of Suffolk based,
professional Show Jumper, Timothy Davies. Tim
achieved great success in 2011 and thanks to
his victory at the International Stairway League
he was awarded a wildcard which took him on to
HOYS. Already in 2012 Tim, along with 4 of his
horses, have been based in Spain for 6 weeks
competing in the renowned Sunshine Tour.
Selwood Products would like to wish Tim and
his team all the best for 2012 and are excited to
share their future achievements.

Tim Davies Talks Preparation, Nerves and Embarrassing Moments.

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We recently sat down with Tim Davies, Team Selwood show jumper, and fired a few questions at him. This is an extract from our interview where Tim talks competition preparation, coping with nerves and embarrassing moments.

What sort of preparation do you do in the run up to a competition?
I don’t think I would really do anything different. Their (the horses’) routine doesn’t really change. I tried to make everything as normal as possible. They may be schooled a bit, hack out – I tend to keep it the same. If I feel they need to have a jump in between they’ll have a jump, perhaps they missed a jump at one show or they need to build up their confidence. The horses like to have their routine and I try to stick to that as much as possible.

Do you get nervous?
It’s the build-up that makes me most nervous. Once I’m in there and doing it I’m fine. There have been times especially last year when I’ve started to feel the pressure a bit, especially at Suffolk. If I won I would win a car and I started to feel the pressure, and I was last to go. All I had to do was jump so many fences clear, but it was easier said than done.

Do you have a method to cope with that?
I didn’t really want to be there actually. Everyone outside was great, obviously you get to know everybody. They all want you to do it. The jump off felt like it went on forever. Usually I’m pretty good really. You walk the course sometimes and you think it’s going to be this massive course then you think oh actually it’s not that bad. When you’re in there and you’ve started I think all of the nerves go really.

Embarrassing moment.
There is one that really sticks in my mind actually. It was when I was young and I used to be on the lead rein. I used to do the bending poles. We’d only just started doing it and my Dad was very competitive and he used to go very fast, fly round the pole at the end. I’d fallen off but he didn’t realise I’d fallen off. He then went back, thought he’d won and I was sat crying. That happened quite a few times. He was very, very competitive. I enjoyed those days and I think it was great grounding. A lot of people who compete now have all been through that and done that. I don’t know if the young people of today go through that as much. They tend to be given expensive horses to ride and learn that way and I don’t know if you get the raw talent anymore like you used to get.

Stay tuned to hear more from Tim and the rest of Team Selwood.
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