Give Dragon Boating a Go – Club Support

We’re running two Give Dragon Boating a Go sessions at Westhaven Marina on Sunday 13 and Sunday 27 September, straight after Polar Bears training.

These sessions are all about giving brand-new paddlers a fun, safe and welcoming introduction to dragon boating, and then giving them the chance to meet our Auckland clubs and find somewhere to continue paddling.

We’ll need support from clubs withcoaches, strokes, paddles and general helping hands. Chris Stone will coordinate the sweeps, as all participants will be new paddlers, and coaches, sweeps and strokes will be mixed across the boats.

Please bring any wooden club paddles you can spare and clearly mark them with your club initials (e.g. CD for City Dragons).

Each club will also get around two minutes at the end of the session to share your club vibe, training times, who you cater for and why our newbies should come and paddle with you.

We also ask that club members give our newbies space to enjoy the session without being recruited throughout the morning. Recruitment time starts at 11am, once the paddling is done, then you can go for it!

The plan

• 8.30am – Club representatives and helpers arrive. All hands on deck to put up banners and get lifejackets and wooden paddles ready while Polar Bears wraps up.
• 8.50am – Newbies arrive and sign in.
• 9.15am – Welcome, safety briefing and lifejackets.
• 9.30am – Newbies pair up and split into six teams. Coaches and club representatives teach the dragon boat basics on land.
• 10.00am – Load the boats.
• 10.20am – Race time! Boats line up at the race start, Winter Series style.
• 10.40am – Return to Westhaven and put the boats and equipment away.
• 11.00am – Recruitment time! Clubs get their chance to introduce themselves and chat with our newest paddlers. 🐉

Thanks heaps for getting behind these days. The more clubs and helpers we have involved, the better the experience for our newbies, and hopefully we’ll send plenty of new paddlers your way for the coming season.