Berber van der Meer is commander of the volunteers and the Pink Panthers at Indoor Friesland

Without volunteers, there would be no events. This certainly applies to equestrian sports as well. No competition could exist without people who dedicate days, weeks, even months to THEIR event. Indoor Friesland also has a large team that dedicates itself with great passion. Berber van der Meer is one of them. However, this year, Berber had a dual role. Besides recruiting and managing a large group of volunteers, she was also the captain of one of the teams competing in the Epplejeck Viertallen Cup final on Friday evening.  

Approximately 180 volunteers are committed to Indoor Friesland 2025. Berber coordinates all these people and their activities. She spends about eighteen hours a day on this, but she's actually busy 24 hours a day, because every year she also makes her house available to volunteers who live further away and would like a place to sleep nearby.

Volunteer Coordinator 

I'm indeed the volunteer coordinator at Indoor Friesland. It takes up a lot of my time, but I absolutely love it. In fact, I'm involved with it all year round. Once an edition is up and running, I'm already looking ahead to the next one. What's going well, what could be better, what needs to change—that sort of thing. In 2022, the first year of the new Indoor Friesland, I was "just" a volunteer. I was responsible for the volunteers. Sports director Yvonne van Bergen saw me and asked me for the position I hold now. It's a lot of work, but I've never regretted it for a single moment. I love what I do and I enjoy it immensely.

The Pink Panthers 

I'm also the captain of the foursome The Pink Panthers. This foursome has been around for a while, but they didn't have a captain, so two years ago, one of the riders who taught at my riding school asked me to join. It went really well tonight; it was our best freestyle ever. We rode a test at L-level and qualified by becoming Frisian Champions. We're becoming more and more serious, thanks to the increasing number of competitions being organized for teams of two. This equestrian sport is gaining popularity again after a quiet period, and this initiative by Epplejeck and Indoor Friesland is certainly contributing to that. The fun of riding in a team of two is that you constantly have to adapt to each other and the horses, and that's a real challenge. Incidentally, I also ride in a foursome, team De Bildtstars. However, I'm only allowed to participate in this final with one team, and De Bildstars has a reserve, so that's why I chose it.

Photos: Equiglim and Digishots

Text: Media team Indoor Friesland