Thank you everyone who volunteered their time to come together and celebrate What’s Great on Australia Day.  Paddlers from different clubs came together for a fun day.   The event at the National Museum to celebrate the year of the Dragon was a great event, weather was kind to us while the event was on. Alfred Pawlicki life member of the CDBA certainly took the reins of the microphone and entertained the crowd while the dragon boat demonstration was on.  A dragon head and drum was on display on land and this saw many little children lining up to pat the dragon head and beat the drum under Al’s supervision.  When Al turned his back some little ones wanted to ride the dragon head. The National Museum promoted the Chinese festival through their website, signage and media and dragon boating was mentioned in all of the promotion.  The National Museum provided food/drink vouchers for everyone, which was a way of saying thank you to the CDBA for our support for the Chinese Festival.

Later on in the day another race demonstration occurred in front of a large crowd at Regatta Point.  Again Alfred engaged the crowd to do a countdown to start the race between two boats, Rolling Thunder and Lightning Shot.  With the two boats not quite on the line together seeing Lightning Shot just a nose forward did see Lightning Shot win the race by a ¼ of a boat.  Thankyou again to all sweeps, drummers, paddlers and support crew.  After the event a good Aussie BBQ was provided by the CDBA and to follow on was the spectacular fireworks display.  Much appreciated to have the help of Amelia Grieve, Mark Francis and Betsy Dixon the CDBA President to man the BBQ.

Until another year to celebrate What’s Great on Australia Day, thank you all again.

Michele Moroney

Vice President CDBA

 AusDBF Info Bulletin No 1 VIC 2012 - 16 dec 11 (94.46 kB)

CDBA members and friends raised more than $20,000 at the trivia night on 4 November to help Lauren Stacey and her fight against cancer. This is in addition to the approximately $4000 raised by Komodo Paddle Club through their contribution scheme. The trivia night organisers extend their heartfelt thanks to everyone who contributed to this event and to supporting Lauren. Current advice is that Lauren is showing signs of improvement and may be home before Christmas.