Anna Wellings-Booth is the founder, guiding light and advocate of Dragons Abreast ACT and has been inspirational to many and done so much for others in the community.  

Anna  founded Dragons Abreast ACT in 1999 and has since worked tirelessly to support those traveling the breast cancer journey as well as the dragon boating community. 

In 2009  Anna’s contributions were acknowledged by the Canberra Dragon Boat Association, through the inaugural perpetual ‘Anna Wellings-Booth Trophy’, an award to showcase the person who symbolises the very best of us and what we are.  She is also a life member of DAACT and CDBA.

Anna’s determination, tenacity and her ability to fight for a cause has enabled her to initiate and work on many organised activities and events to ensure that life is not only measurably better for women with breast cancer through dragon boating, but also our community has a greater awareness and knowledge about breast cancer.

Michele is one of the longest serving members of the Canberra Dragon Boat Association having been a member 1992. She has been heavily involved with the administration of the sport from those early days. She was membership officer from 1996 to 1998 and has held the position of Vice President of the CDBA from 2002 to present. Her involvement in this role has provided the CDBA with a continuity and retention of ‘corporate knowledge’ which has been of invaluable assistance to each president she has supported and to the fledgling sport in Canberra. 

Michele lives and breathes dragon boating. She has been responsible for preparing grant nominations each year for the CDBA, thus raising money to ensure the sport’s future in Canberra continues to grow and get stronger every year. She has been involved in all policy development and her knowledge from previous involvement at a high level in ACT Swimming has been put to good use for the CDBA. 

Michele shows a commitment to the sport and sets a high standard to other members, both in and out of the boat. Michele is an example of someone who puts the good of the organisation before her own needs. She is always there, willing to help in any way; early mornings, late nights, paperwork, meetings, organising events, delegating tasks, paddling, encouraging and helping with maintenance of equipment, while always remembering to make things fun. 

Robyne has always gone the extra mile to support CDBA and DA, willingly taking on organisational, training and coaching roles. Over the years she has acted as a trainer/coach for DA, has trained and mentored many of the CDBA sweeps, has played an active role as an official and sweep at many regattas, both local and national and has been an active member of DA and CDBA committees. Robyne has served as Training Director of CDBA and Technical Director of DA and coached the Canberra Dragon Flyers Grandmaster Women’s crew competing at the 2010 World Club Crew Championships in Macau, China.

Robyne has played a key role in the DA Corporate Challenge Regattas, organising the coaching and training of these teams. She also has had extensive Officials experience as Boat Wrangler, Marshal, Chief Marshal and Water Umpire.

Robyne has worked on furthering her own skills as a coach and official and has willingly used and shared this knowledge.  She is a Level One Dragon boat Coach  (check), is an Accredited Sweep and Sweep Accreditor.

 She provides opportunities for people to enjoy dragon boating in a spirit of enthusiasm and involvement.

Tarquin is an extrovert with a larger than life approach to everything he does. This attitude has been transferred to dragon boating and he has an infectious influence on his fellow paddlers. He is always the first to extend a hand of friendship to new and old paddlers and his booming voice can always be heard during regattas congratulating other teams regardless of their placing. He is a sportsman of the first order.

His robust personality has made him a significant draw card to the sport of dragon boating. His presence on open days or DA corporate days is often underscored by an uncanny ability to attract people to his ‘domain’ and allow them to regale them with his exploits in Dragon Boating. His friendly demeanour and tall stories make people warm to him and thus the sport.

Tarquin has always extended his hand to assisting the Dragon Flyers and the CDBA in promoting the sport of dragon boating. This is particularly evident with the Dragon Abreast corporate days where Tarquin has often coached more teams than others. And this also transpires into the regattas themselves where he sweeps many boats. Tarquin also organised and managed the highly successful CDBA involvement in the Olympic Torch relay in 2008. His energy in ensuring that the CDBA was cast in the best possible light in this event was most commendable and worthy of recognition.

Finally Tarquin was responsible from 2005 until 2008 organising the CDBA fun days. This was not an easy task and resulted in him spending much of his ‘down time’ arranging things for the pleasure of his fellow paddlers.