Cobourg Dragon Boat Club - Northumberland County · Cobourg dragon boat Club newsletter Page 3 July...

Volume 2, Issue 3 July 2010

Commodore’s Message: from Beth Bellaire

Here we are at the half-way point of our season al-ready. Time does fly when you’re having fun! And I hope all of you are having fun paddling this summer. Remember, if you have any positive comments or con-structive criticisms, we are happy to hear them all. I think we offer a great summer experience, but there is always room for improvement. You can send any of your thoughts directly to me or share them with your team captain, and he/she will make sure they are passed on. I’d like to take this opportunity to thank our team captains. They all do a superb job of keeping their teams informed of upcoming events, making sure waivers for festivals are signed, helping with the collection of fees, ordering of shirts, and all those other tasks that help make your experience as good as it can be. (If you’re not sure who your captain is, I’ve in-cluded a list below.) Team Captains Fitness Dario D’Anna (assistant is Frieda Davey) Keel Hollers Vern Chase Torpedos Audrey Woolsey Tsugoi Michelle Driscoll Finally, I want to let you know that the executive is rec-ommending changing the club’s name to reflect our newest expansion – our canoe and kayak division. At the last executive meeting, a motion was passed to change the club’s name to the Cobourg Dragon Boat and Canoe Club. Since this change affects our Letters Patent and our By-Laws, it needs to be ratified by the full membership at the next Annual General Meeting (usually held in late September), so I wanted to make sure everyone had time to consider this change and voice any thoughts they might have.

As you arrive for the early practices, I’m sure you’ve all noticed the bustling activity in the west harbour and heard the happy voices of the more than 40 kids who have signed up for this summer’s pilot program of ca-noe/kayak racing skill development. And I hope many of you have taken advantage of the opportunity of try-ing these boats out for yourself. While our focus in this new division is now on youth, we are also hoping to have a healthy adult contingent develop. More on this later.

To help purchase the necessary boats, we are in the midst of a capi-tal fund raising campaign, going to the local service clubs, the United Way, and the Ontario Trillium Foun-dation, as well as approaching local businesses. We were very pleased to get a huge donation of used boats from the Sydenham Lake Canoe Club. As a club, we have already applied and been accepted into the Western

Ontario Division of the Canoe Kayak Canada Associa-tion, and we plan to have our young paddlers begin to compete as early as next year in several regattas around southern Ontario. You can see that your executive is solidly behind this venture. We are asking for your support as well. Let me know your thoughts on this expansion. Do you have any ideas on how we can involve the dragon boaters more? Elsewhere in this newsletter, there is a full report on the success of the Youth program, so read that and then let me know how you’d like to be-come more involved. See you on the water! Beth Bellaire ([email protected])

Cobourg Dragon Boat Clu

b

Cobourg dragon boat Club newsletter July ‘10

Tsugoi at Toronto Centre Island

The Tsugoi Women had an amazing showing at this year's Toronto International Dragon Boat Festival. They came out strong in their first race, finishing over ten seconds ahead of their nearest competitor with a time of 2:26:16. Their second race of the day was against some of their stiffest competitors; the ladies came in third in this race but got their time down to 2:24:64. Lanes 2 and 5 had been good to the team on day 1, Jeremy did tell the team they were the "best" lanes! The morning of day 2 saw the team in the Community Final E where the women competed against 5 mixed crews; they came out in third place with a "Tsugoi" time of 2:22:98. The team then faced off in the Premier Women Championship Cup. The women went in seeded fourth and finished in fourth place with a time of 2:23:79. That means that the Tsugoi Women finished 4th out of 19 women's teams and 20th out of 52 community teams. The team would like to thank Jer-emy and Beej, their amazing coach and drummer! The team is now looking forward to competing at the Kingston Dragon Boat festival on July 24th and then they will set their sights on the Stratford festival in September. Way to be TSUGOI Ladies!

For the 12th consecutive year, the Cobourg Dragon Boat Club was well represented at the 2010 Toronto International Dragon Boat Festival on Centre Island, held June 18 & 19. Our roster in-cluded 3 teams: the Women’s Competitive Tsugoi Dragons, the KPR Ridgeback Teachers and the Grand Master Keel Hollers.


Keel Hollers at Toronto Centre Island

For the 12th consecutive year, the Cobourg Dragon Boat Club was well represented at the 2010 Toronto International Dragon Boat Festival on Centre Island, held June 18 & 19. Our roster in-cluded 3 teams: the Women’s Competitive Tsugoi Dragons, the KPR Ridgeback Teachers and the Grand Master Keel Hollers. For some of our Keel Hollers, it was the 12th consecutive year in attendance at the 2010 To-ronto International Dragon Boat Festival and we were certainly not disappointed by our perform-ance. After dedicated training on and off the water, we felt well prepared for the task ahead. Paddling short-handed, the Keel Hollers had very respectable showings completing our first race with a time of 2:23:57, second in our heat. Under the careful guidance of coach John Beauchamp, who joined the paddlers, and the mas-terful steering of Bill Netherton, Race 2 saw the team accomplish one of this year’s goals – by placing 1st in its heat with a time of 2:23:29. Sunday’s races proved even more successful with John returning to the helm and netting times of 2:19:39 and 2:19:37. We were all pleased with our results and look forward to the upcoming Marilyn Bell Festival of July 17th.


Torpedoes at Port Perry

Competitive Mixed "Torpedoes" Sat, June 19th saw the club's newest team compete in Port Perry. With the exception of Maria Garrett,none of the crew had ever raced there before. The town is small, with many quaint and interesting shops for browsing in between races. The 400m course was well marked, but with thick heavy reeds leading out to the start, and a slow lane nearest the shoreline. The organizers did a good job considering the small venue site. 56 teams were present. Our crew, considering the number of "first time rac-ers", did exceptionally well! Thanks to Maria, we "pushed off" with a full boat. At the last minute, she had recruited two friends from the Lindsay area. Neither had dragonboat experience, but were hikers, very fit, and competent canoeists. They thoroughly enjoyed the day.


Keel Hollers at Marilyn Bell - Toronto

The early hours of Saturday July 17 saw the Keel Hollers making their way around the “Toronto Indi” course to Marilyn Bell Park. The team battled high winds, thunder, light-ening and menacing skies (but no rain) to achieve their best results of the season to date. Competing in a wide variety of races(200m, 500m and 2000m) the team paddled in five events in a mere seven hours, and were certainly up for the challenge, being more than pleased with their race results. Under the careful guidance of Coach John Beauchamp and the steering skills of Bill Netherton, the team placed first in both the 200m and 500m finals to clench the B Division Consolation Championships. Taking the steering oar, John led us through the 2K race. With a minimum clashing of paddles we managed, this time, to avoid direct contact with a competing boat and fin-ished respectfully against eight other teams. Our next venture will test our endurance even more, as we compete in the Lachine 20 Kilometre Challenge in Montreal. Race 4 200M 54:54 Race 10 200M 54:05 Race 20 500M 2:24:94 Race 27 500M 2:21:04 Race 35 2000M 11:14:00


OC Sprint Division Report

Youths practices Monday and Thurs-day 4:30 - 6:00 pm Adults practice Tuesdays at 5:30 - 7:30 pm To date we have 40 youth paddlers and one adult paddler in the sprint division. We have a total of 30 boats in our fleet, including our OC1s. Sydne-ham Lake Canoe Club graciously donated 15 boats which we have been fixing up to make them usable. All are approximately 30-40 years old and are great for training. Kayak Sport has lent us a number of boats which we are using for training and some will be used for racing next season. We are currently fundraising to buy the boats lent to us from Kayak

Sport as well as to buy boat that we need to race in next year, as the technology of boat building has changed. It is like using a road bike, verse a racing bike in a road race. If you know of any business that might be interested in sponsoring any of our boats, please let either Jeremy of Beth know. We would gladly display their logo on the boat or paddles! Our fleet includes, Single, double and four person kayak and canoes, as well as a war canoe. We also have Oc1 and an OC2, as well as a stand up paddleboard. Feel free to come down to the har-bour any Monday and Thursday 4:40-6:00 pm to see the kids in action.


United Way 2010

United Way 2009

This year's United Way Festival is on Saturday September 25th. Once again, I am asking if club mem-bers would volunteer their time and efforts to help out on this day. This is the biggest one day fund raiser that the United Way runs and our club has been instrumental in its success for the past 10 years, top-ping in excess of $42,000.00 per year for the last several years in funds raised. If you are a new paddler this year, WE STILL NEED YOU! There are many, many jobs to do and many hands make light work. You even get lunch and a T shirt! Jobs entail drumming, bailing boats, starters, finish line folks, dock "police", marshalls, set up and take down crew and more. If you have a specific job you would like to to do, I will try to accommodate it. All volunteers from last year are more than welcome back too! VERY IMPORTANT: If at all possible, if you could NOT paddle on a team at all that day, you are very valuable as I know I will not have to find a replacement/back up for you when you go off to paddle. Traditionally, many teams at the festival are entered as a result of club members getting a team together of co-workers etc. and that is great. Please continue to do so and be captain of your team etc. But if you could get your team to paddle without you, that would be awesome. I know this won't fly for lots of folks but even if more and more paddlers could give of their time exclu-sively that day, it would be much smoother and actually require less volunteers. Please email me directly if you can help out. We usually use about 65 club members that day and it is a fun time for all!!! Beej's email is: [email protected] Thanks for volunteering everyone and remember, as the folks at United Way always say, "Without you, there would be no way"!


Thanks Jeremy…...

On Tuesday, June 22 the Keel Hollers took an alternate training route, organized by Coach John Beauchamp, and tapped into the expertise and knowledge of our Head Coach Jeremy Fowlie to explore the different paddling opportunities that our club now has to offer. The four-man kayak, K-1, Paddle Board, OC – 1s and OC – 2s (Outrigger Canoes), just to mention a few, were tackled with the enthusiasm of novice paddlers. It was truly a wonderful learning experience and we all came away (many drip-ping wet) with a genuine appreciation for this wonderful new wa-ter sport and core training tool, not to mention a sense of awe to-ward our youth paddlers who are acquiring these skills at break-neck speeds. Thank you so much Jeremy for taking time from your busy schedule to introduce us to the paddling component of our club and the opportunities that lie within. We really do appreciate it.


No Description Needed*...


Upcoming Events

August 28th: Lachine Canal 20k Challenge (Keel Hollers)

Sept. 18th: Stratford Festi-val (Tsugoi) Sept. 25th - United Way Dragonboat Festival

For Your Consideration

At the June 16 Executive Meeting of the Cobourg Dragon Boat Club, executive voted to endorse the change of the club name from the Cobourg Dragon Boat Club to the Cobourg Dragon Boat and Paddling Club to better reflect the involvement of our club in a variety of pad-dling experiences. This will be presented for discussion at the Annual General Meet-ing in the fall and voted on by the membership at that time.

Access Funds

A reminder to club members that a requirement of our funding from the Trillium Foundation is that the club provide financial support for those members who due to personal cir-cumstances may need assistance to participate in practices and festivals. If you or someone you know may need this assistance, you should contact Doug Smith( Director of Ac-cess) at 905-372-1298 or email to [email protected] All conversations are kept in strict confidence.

August Newsletter Deadline

Wed., August 18th, 2010


Commodore Beth Bellaire [email protected]

Vice Commodore Marlene Jenkins [email protected]

Past Commodore Bill Zeran brzeran@sympatico

Treasurer Larry Beck [email protected]

Secretary Michelle Driscoll [email protected]

Director of Membership Rita Zeran [email protected]

Director of Access Doug Smith [email protected]

Director of Fundraising Ruth Farkas [email protected]

Director of Social Activities Chris Proulx [email protected]

Director of Public Relations Carol Currelly-Burnham

[email protected]

Head Coach Jeremy Fowlie [email protected]

Coach Haigh Gledhill [email protected]

Director of Maintenance Tom Tester [email protected]

Director at Large for United Way

Beej McNamara [email protected]

Director at Large for Youth Programming

Kristin Hanley [email protected]

Coach John Beauchamp [email protected]

Coach Bill Netherton [email protected]

2010 Executive Committee

Newsletter Editor: John Woolsey - [email protected]

Cobourg Dragon Boat Club - Northumberland County · Cobourg dragon boat Club newsletter Page 3 July...

Documents

Transcript of Cobourg Dragon Boat Club - Northumberland County · Cobourg dragon boat Club newsletter Page 3 July...