San Francisco’s Rainbow Koi Team- a wide ranging team consisting of many colors, encompasses of homosexuals, transgender and the straight alike. As it appears, the team is as unique as its name, harbouring still the same strong bond of a dragon boating team. The team was put together with Gay Asian Pacific Alliance along with the Asian Pacific Islander Queer Women and Transgender Community last 2004. Michael Ellis was its first coach, along with Jean Danao as its first captain.

Rainbow Koi became San Francisco’s Rainbow Koi dragon boat team last 2004 when they were discovered by a 10 year veteran coach Jeniffer Eng at their novice race at Lake Merced, San Francisco. On its second season, the team became a part of the Recreational Division. With it’s motto: “Fierce and Fabulous!” the team was able to bring home a silver medal in 2006 at the first out games in Montreal, Canada. They later snatched a gold medal at Kaiser Permanente San Francisco International Dragon Boat Festival in the Rec C Division.

On its 4th season as a dragon boat team, the team’s goal this year: ‘to have fun’ later evolved into ‘to win’. Of course, now that they have paddled hard and got the gold, the team is reportedly saying that they would still aim for gold all the way.
The team’s mission is also almost close with its motto. With the goal to liven up and increase the involvement of LGBT athletes in this fast-growing sport: dragon boating. This only proves that the team’s fighting spirit could not get dampened by anything. Apart from having fun, the team is letting their ‘fellow brothers and sisters’ have the opportunity to be their selves once in a while without gaining the occasional ‘raised eyebrows’ from other people.

As the team glides in the waters of Bay Area, San Francisco Rainbow Koi is looking forward on a much stronger team while being fierce and fabulous all the way with recruiting more members.

This year competition was a bit watered down because most of the top teams were not in attendance as they were in Penang, Malaysia for the 2008 6th World Club Crew Championships and as a result some of the teams that were not usually belong in the A Division category was subsequently ranked as such in this regatta.

The 2008 Montreal Dragon Boat Regatta also presents special races such as the Women’s Division, Men’s Division, Out of Town Race and many more to name it few. Each team really performed to their best to win the race. But some teams were not very happy about their performance. They were not prepared and focused due to some unpleasant circumstances like one paddler may end up not paddling and some paddlers did not hear the referee gives the signal to go.

The referee in this kind of race gives a very little time between the time when he says paddle up! (meaning that you need to get your paddle ready to race) from the time he says Go! And when some of the paddlers were not ready, the team start will be affected and subsequently will not perform as well as they should be.
Weeks before the Montreal Dragon Boat Regatta, participating teams were pushing themselves to do well during their practice to ensure their victory. Some of the coaches were moving around his paddlers around the boat to know when the paddlers do well in front as well as the back of the boat. This strategy makes the paddlers to become versatile and more valuable. The coach could not only switch the paddlers from front to back rather he can also interchange it form left to right sides of the boat.

In the second race, calling your boat Finish is a little bit risky. The cox or the coach should know his team very well. If they call finish too early, their boat can tire out and subsequently will have nothing left to finish the race. The third and fourth race in the Montreal Dragon Boat Regatta was interesting as they were the Financial Cup as well as the Out of Town Race. The distances in each race in this competition is 500 meter but not on Financial Cup and Out of Town Cup which is only 250 meters distance. There are specific strategies used for each type of race. For the 250 meters race, it is very much sprinting the entire time as the distance is short because there really isn’t enough time for transition. However, in 500 meter race you can really feel the difference between the Start, the Transition and the Finish.

In this competition, you really need to be ready mentally and physically during the race and your goal is to race and beat your opponents regardless on the external forces that you can’t control.

I thought this would be an interesting post for our readers who may be interested in Walt Disney and Dragon Boating. The “first-ever” Orlando International Dragon Boat Festival event was held on the 18th October 2008 at the Walt Disney World Resort.

Forty-six teams came from as far as Canada and Trinidad and Tobago, and as near as Orlando and Tampa in the US. There were over 5000 global participants and tens of thousands of spectators with 8 boats.

During the festival, more than 100 breast cancer survivors performed a traditional flower ceremony (pink carnations were released into the water), demonstrating courage as they participated in the event and raised awareness for their cause.

Here are some photos below of the event, courtesy of Kathy Werling.
You can click on the picture to enlarge.

October is internationally known as Breast Cancer Month and you must be wondering why I am talking about this topic? Well, today is the 1st of October and I thought it is a timely manner to talk about Dragons Abreast, the dragonboat association that helps, supports and raises awareness for Breast Cancer Survivors across the world.

There are lots of activities designed to promote awareness of breast cancer and to help raise funds to support research. The main event for Dragons Abreast Australia this year is the Darling Harbour event held on the 19th October 2008. Furthermore 2008 is a very special time as Dragons Abreast as they are celebrating 10 years since breast cancer survivors took to paddling dragon boats in Australia.

This is what Dragons Abreast offers for cancer survivors:
“Dragons Abreast Australia is a phenomenon that has grown enormously simply because we are filling a gap in the market place by helping post-treatment breast cancer patients regain full and active lives. Happily a large percentage of women survive breast cancer these days but the transition from patients back into a full and active life is often difficult. We are a highly effective element in the ongoing post-treatment management of breast cancer patients, delivering significant physical and psycho-social benefits.”

So – this October support Dragons Abreast by either raising some money via the Dragons Abreast National Event held at Darling Harbour, click here for more information. Or purchase a “Keyring of Hope” here to support Dragons Abreast.

More information about the “Key Ring of Hope” can be found here.

After any Dragon Boat event there are certain tasks that need to be completed. It’s not something that one should do, it’s a must in order to finish off an event properly.

Some guidelines to consider:

• Make sure that all boats are dismantled and loaded back for transportation to the docks.
• All equipment that has been used on the day have been packed and transported back to base.
• All tents, tables, chairs have been all put away and dismantled
• All teams have vacated the site
• Invite cleaners to come out and collect all rubbish
• Final results have been tallied and safely transported back to base for data-entry and uploaded to the Internet for paddlers
• Lastly, you have thanked all staff and volunteer’s for their help on the day

This ends the series on how to run a Dragon Boat event in brief and gives you a run down on what one needs to consider when holding an event large or small.



Dragon boat event

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]]> http://www.dragonglobe.com/events/how-to-run-a-dragon-boat-event-part-8/feed/ 0 http://www.dragonglobe.com/events/how-to-run-a-dragon-boat-event-part-7/ http://www.dragonglobe.com/events/how-to-run-a-dragon-boat-event-part-7/#comments Mon, 08 Sep 2008 07:05:18 +0000 Tyrone http://www.dragonglobe.com/?p=424 The day of the your event

Now that we have done all the ground work, it’s now for the real challenge. Running the event on the day!

Most event organisers start very early in the morning around 5am to just make sure everything runs smoothly and usually don’t finish up until around 7pm or 8pm when everyone has literately gone. So for starters be prepared for a very long day, and if you intend to do this on a regular basis, you will need to make sure that your systems are fine tuned to make each event run on time.

Most likely the Dragon boats would be delivered from another location and that is what most people attend to first. Usually a crew of 20-30 people will be enough to help unload the boats and have them setup on the water and ready to go to start the day.

The most important aspect first thing in the morning is making sure that the registration desk is open and can allow for team captains and newbies to register their details for the day if they haven’t already pre-registered. Furthermore the registration desk is a good way to provide more information as well if people are looking to get more information about the event on the day.

Once the boats are on the water, the next stage is to start testing the equipment. This is crucial as most times you may think it’s alright and nothing has been touched since setting them up the day before. Not the case! Make sure all the communications between the starter crew, the marshalling crew and scoring crew all are about to communicate. Furthermore the water crew need to be listening in also to provide any back up assistance on the water.

The rest of the day will consist of back to back events which would have been already laid out in a timetable of events and the key to keeping everything on time is to make sure there is strong communication between the teams and the marshalling crew. That way teams can be ready to go as soon the previous race is finished.

Tomorrow I will go into more details about closing an event.

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]]> http://www.dragonglobe.com/events/how-to-run-a-dragon-boat-event-part-7/feed/ 0 http://www.dragonglobe.com/events/how-to-run-a-dragon-boat-event-part-6/ http://www.dragonglobe.com/events/how-to-run-a-dragon-boat-event-part-6/#comments Thu, 04 Sep 2008 01:24:54 +0000 Tyrone http://www.dragonglobe.com/?p=426 Marketing your event

This is where the fun really begins! Marketing a dragon boat event can be quite rewarding as you get to really connect with the community and also help promote a wonderful cause or charity if your event is associated with one.

There are some places I recommend starting to promote your event:

• Through all the teams that are participating – ask them to also promote it at their workplace and with their peers and family
• Do a press release in the local paper
• Place advertisements in surrounding gyms
• Ask the local charity to promote it through their members
• Encourage shop owners and businesses participating at the event to promote the event in their store

Those are just some of the areas where you can promote and market your event. Ideally you want to allow for at least one month prior to the event of advertising and marketing. That way you can also capture new teams and potentially more sponsors who would be interested in an event like this.

Also you will also want to consider creating event-related print materials, such as brochures, registration packages, participant waivers, and signage. These are some of the marketing print material you will need to include when running an event.

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]]> http://www.dragonglobe.com/events/how-to-run-a-dragon-boat-event-part-6/feed/ 0 http://www.dragonglobe.com/events/how-to-run-a-dragon-boat-event-part-5/ http://www.dragonglobe.com/events/how-to-run-a-dragon-boat-event-part-5/#comments Wed, 03 Sep 2008 01:25:33 +0000 Tyrone http://www.dragonglobe.com/?p=428 Find Volunteers or pay for staff

Most events usually start off with Clubs hosting them and eventually they become so big that they need to hire staff and run it as a business, which most people have seen happen in the US and Europe.

The first place to start, if you were holding a local event is to get your own club involved, and most likely there would be a minimum of 25 people in your dragonboat club. Some events also can be run jointly with other dragonboat clubs if numbers are not enough and both would benefit from an increase of exposure in the community and also some fund raising money that usually comes out of running an event. If all else fails and your club members are not committed in helping then looking for volunteers in the local community is not too hard. Simply ask the council or the rotary club and offer them a free lunch or gift at the end of the event for simply helping out.

You will need at least 25 people to run a successful event and they can be allocated in numerous ways. This is how we have done it in the past:

• Marshalling: 3 people
• Starter: 2 people
• Timer keepers and Scorers: 6 people
• On-water crew: 2 people
• People to hold the boat at a Platoon: 6 people
• InfoDesk and Registration: 3 people
• Organiser: 1 person
• Extras for smaller tasks: 2 people

Now if you were to run an event with paid staff, there are going to be more financial costs involved and also that will add to the cost of registration from each club. Though I personally find this to be a more economical way as the idea of running an event through a registered business allows for the sport to grow. More and more event management companies are coming into Dragonboating and owing the equipment and then running them with the aim to make an event spectacular and rewarding for dragonboaters. Additionally there can be prize money for the winning teams and other incentives compared to running an event through a club and local community.

I will go into more details about running an event like Great White North in the coming months as a registered business.

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]]> http://www.dragonglobe.com/events/how-to-run-a-dragon-boat-event-part-5/feed/ 0 http://www.dragonglobe.com/events/how-to-run-a-dragon-boat-event-part-4/ http://www.dragonglobe.com/events/how-to-run-a-dragon-boat-event-part-4/#comments Tue, 02 Sep 2008 01:18:59 +0000 Tyrone http://www.dragonglobe.com/?p=430 Involve the locals and council – ask businesses to setup stores as well

It’s always great to see if the local community is interesting in sponsoring the event and also do some free publicity for you. Some main businesses and local community clubs I would firstly approach to get them on board are:

• The Local Council
• Rotary Club
• The Local RSL
• Fitness First or the local Sport/gym club
• The local sandwich/fast food store
• Local Radio Station
• Local Newspaper
• Local Charities

Once you have got these local businesses on board, you can start to invite other businesses who may be interested in holding a store to promote their products or services. That way with the traffic the event brings they can make some money on the day and also help support the event through a donation or a small little fee from renting a space and a store.

We have found in the past that this works really well and a lot of the locals come down and make a day of it and bring the family along to watch the races and to socialise with other members in the community.

Tomorrow I will talk about where to find volunteers or staff to help with the event.

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]]> http://www.dragonglobe.com/events/how-to-run-a-dragon-boat-event-part-4/feed/ 0 http://www.dragonglobe.com/events/how-to-run-a-dragon-boat-event-part-3/ http://www.dragonglobe.com/events/how-to-run-a-dragon-boat-event-part-3/#comments Mon, 01 Sep 2008 02:14:45 +0000 Tyrone http://www.dragonglobe.com/?p=432 GETTING DRAGON BOATS

You need dragon boats and loads of them. They need to be identical, or else the accusations will start to fly. So now you have found your boats how long are you going to allow between races and will you want one or two sets of boats? Remember, getting paddlers in and out of boats takes longer than getting to the start and racing.

Below are a list of dragonboat suppliers which you can purchase boats from, otherwise it is more cost-effective to hire them from the local marine club or the association that owns them.

• BUK Boats
• Champion Boats
• Donoratico
• Gemini
• KTH Seagull Boats
• Pei Sheng Boats
• Pel Plastex
• Regata 2000
• Simon River Sports
• Swift International

The above dragonboat manufacturers are all IDBF approved, so you won’t have a problem using them for International racing events.

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