Coming Events

as he notices the ash of his vanquished adversaries on his glittering golden scales.

The summer sun and a mass of black and yellow made Teeside seem like a second home to us on Sunday. An excellent last minute push for people to attend allowed us to field four crews on the day, Open, Bees, Wasps and Pool of life.

The absence of some of our more experienced paddlers for a variety of known reasons meant that team selections were more complicated than normal, the effect being felt mainly in the Bees and Wasps as paddlers were moved up the order. Each team was effectively running with 18 paddlers with a view to moving a pair up for finals.

Although there was not a great turn out from other clubs there were enough to make the racing good throughout the competition and each of our teams was challenged to get to the top of its game during the day.

My concept was that our club members seemed to be enjoying the day and seemed to be having good racing. Many thanks for the work done by the team managers, Barbara, Paul and Eve.

I will not even make an attempt to match Galty with an event report, his comments and observations are an excellent read, if you do not get his reports let him know and he will put you on the system. He does make the point that we could do with some feedback from the viewpoint of the Bees, Wasps and Pool of Life, as it is difficult to assess how the other crews are performing when you are not competing in that team.

The results of Open 1^st, Bees 6^th, Wasps 8^th and Pool of Life 9^th mean that we now stand at the top of both the Premier division with our open crew and Standard division with our Bees crew.

From the point of view of the open squad, it was a fantastic day in which we were able to learn more about how to win races. Certainly one thing we learned was how important it was to be focussed on the objective of the team. “The other significant point was that we went 7 seconds faster when we are boosted by the power of two of our club queens, Queen Bee and the Queen of hearts.”

We are in a great phase of growth and we have many new members that that have little knowledge of the club’s history and achievements.

New members may also have little knowledge of our club systems, times, fees, storage, paddles, buoyancy aids, O1’s etc. Over the next few weeks we are going to be trying to develop and improve our systems so that things can be done more simply. However, we need the additional help of our more experienced members to pass this knowledge on.

However, both communication and education have to work from both directions, I and others will be trying to get information out to you but you have to be willing to become more active in your listening and be more aware that the information is likely to be important to you or to somebody you know.

Some of you will have seen the contract that we have been drawing up for the club’s squads, it is not fixed in stone nor is it just for the open squad.

It has been put together with a view to target some objectives for each of the individual crews within the club, it is sensible for these targets to be based on time trials done at the dock during training.

The objective of the focus nights such as tonight is to set these targets and develop our plans as to how they can be achieved. I feel that each member should be setting their own personal targets and planning on how they are going to hit them.

Too much time is spent discussing the excuses that lead to lack of achievement, we need to focus on our plans to win races.

There is a bottle of wine for the first person to say to me the phrase "The dragon's way may be lonely as few will dare to tread new ground"

Many thanks have to go once again to Paul Griffiths for his work in fund raising for the club, we have just been presented with a cheque for £6900 to be used to upgrade the club facilities in terms of new buoyancy aids, paddles and various items of storage in the cage. With this money we are aiming to redevelop the various storage systems in the cage which are at present rather inefficient. This includes the way in which 01’s are stored. We also aim to increase the quality and number of our O1’s.

The current time trial system seems to be effective in providing the basic information for selection. However, members need to be aware that the system is not set in stone yet and needs to evolve. In particular it needs to take into account the fact that paddlers need to be assessed on current performance not on a trial done several months ago. We will be recording current trials alongside PB,s to get a measure of the effectiveness of training or not training.

For some time we have been seeing the effect of swapping people between the boats at training, last session we began to document this effect more accurately. If members are willing, this could be a useful tool in understanding the contribution made by paddlers to the speeds of the boats and therefore crew selections.

We need to know more about the training that members are doing between the club sessions. I will be establishing a matrix on which I will expect members to make entries. These can be simple comments about the training that you have been doing or points according to the club score sheet. Benefits can be gained if members use this as a focus for discussion about the quantity and quality of training as well as the optional activities that could be used and how effective they can be.

Many thanks go to all those club members who helped out to make this event such a success. You may not be aware that we had over 100 club members at the event working either as paddlers or helpers, this is fantastic and is growing a huge Amathus bubble. It was wonderful to see all the teams racing so effectively and showing increased performances during the day while other club teams seemed to drop off the pace. It is clear that we are getting a significant advantage from putting out two or more boats at each session and we must work hard to maintain this.

It was wonderful to see Pool of Life racing and the hope is that this will be a good step in their preparation for the Worlds in September.

Wasps paddled out of their skins to win the plate final against some very strong opposition, they seemed to be reasonably pleased with this result.

Bees showed tremendous stamina, getting stronger throughout the day to end up second in the minor cup final just behind Kingston. A brilliant result and time of 2mins and 13 secs gave them first place in the standard league.

Our open crew performance was magnificent, achieving a time of 2mins and 1 second, the same time we achieved at the Nationals last year. Once again we had a giant race against Batchworth and were very pleased to see that we had improved our starts. We also had the fun of towing both Kingston and Thames throughout the day. There is no secret to going faster. We need to improve the average speed of our average paddler, it is not about superstars but about increased levels of training throughout the squad.

On Monday or Tuesday of next week it is likely that our new boats will be arriving, we will need lots of hands to help unload them. Two of these boats will be owned by the club, one dedicated to Pool of life the other to GB Juniors. I will let people nearer the time to be exact when and where the help will be needed.

On Sunday we will be running a basic helm course, see notice for details, all welcome.

This course is £25 to general members of the sport but will be subsidized by the club as we need you to become properly qualified.

Finally on the idea of helming, could we go back to identifying helms for future sessions as this helps considerably with the efficient running of sessions.

It was wonderful to see Pool of Life racing and the hope is that this will be a good step in their preparation for the Worlds in September.

Wasps paddled out of their skins to win the plate final against some very strong opposition, they seemed to be reasonably pleased with this result.

On Sunday we will be running a basic helm course, see notice for details, all welcome.

This course is £25 to general members of the sport but will be subsidized by the club as we need you to become properly qualified.

Finally on the idea of helming, could we go back to identifying helms for future sessions as this helps considerably with the efficient running of sessions.

This report will reflect the new stage that we have come to in the club. This change in the AGM is in line with the changing membership of the club and its increased maturity. The idea has been to move the meeting to coincide with the feedback from the racing season and to provide us with a chance to celebrate what we have achieved more recently and to lay out some plans for the future.

In many organisations, the AGM is the time for people to come with gripes and hassle the management. Our policy is somewhat different. My expectation is that if you have something to say or an issue to resolve, we have regular meetings on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Thursdays and Sundays when we are around to discuss all and any of the aspects of the club.

In the last report that I made I referred to the coming of age of the club and the teenage years. I feel that we have come through the teenage years and have reached maturity. (We are about to start our 18^th season). I do not mean that we have grown up but we have had our first baby. We have had our first child and that child was one year old a couple of weeks ago, that is, Pool of Life.

In the last 18 months we have risen to the position of the largest and most impressive Dragon Boat Club in the country. How has this happened, is it by chance? Certainly not but by the combined forces of a large number of people who wanted to make it happen and are still not satisfied (probably will never be satisfied) about how good we can get. Those of us that have been around since the start knew that the potential was there and now it is showing.

During the build up to Nottingham, we were most encouraged to find that we were likely to have nearly 100 members willing to attend, four teams. No club has ever done this. I should have been disappointed. We actually have a membership of over 130. We should have taken six teams!!

No wonder things have changed. What have we changed in the way in which we are recruiting members, I know that other clubs constantly ask what we do. The answer is that we have enough members that are enjoying what they are doing with the club and are telling their friends. It would appear that they have been doing is very effectively, thank you!!!

“The way of the Dragon is magical, never easy or straightforward but full of wonder”

The ethos in the club has always been to be as welcoming as possible to new members and to accept all people for what they are. Each person who comes and joins in with the club activities should feel enjoyment, excitement challenge and achievement. We have a shared view now that each person, no matter what their apparent ability, is capable of bringing something to the club and often as not a new facet of operation that we have not had before.

Usually my report lists the various things that we have done over the year but this year things have had to change. So much has happened that I can only scratch the surface in this report.

“The dragon’s way though ancient is not lonely. Many have strode the path each adding their unique richness to the way.”

Over the last two seasons we have attended all race venues and have made a determined effort to take two teams to each of them. We have devoted a huge amount of time, effort and no little money to achieving our goals and this year surpassed our target by not only taking two teams to each venue but in four cases three. These races not only give our members ample opportunity to race but also give them the chance to see a great deal of the country and meet a huge range of people. The National League again ran on a peer group racing system for both the 200m and 500m distances splitting the teams into Cup and Plate competitions achieving good racing for our competitors.

The range of race venues continues to be an ongoing cause for debate, Docklands courses being fair and deep but tend to be in London, while river courses are perceived to be less fair and open to wash hanging and lane effects, however do provide some of the most exciting racing. The BDA Congress next weekend will have an open discussion of the issue.

A pattern of racing has developed over these past two seasons. Our Open crew has been locked in combat for the Premier title with, both Thames Taniwhas and Batchworth while our Bees have been battling, Thames Titans and Wam for the Standard League. In both seasons the result in the end was the same for the open crew 2^nd place but this season has shown an extremely worthy 2^nd place for the Bees. This year only one point held us off 1^st place in both divisions.

The individual results of the races are available on the BDA Website if you are interested in collecting this sort of data, I am also sure that “Stato” also has all this information.

The Liverpool event needs a special mention as it once again was successfully received by the teams that raced and attracted a few more competitors compared to previous years. Not only did we run the event in a very effective manner, we also fielded three teams. Many thanks go to the club race officials, café staff and general helpers that made this event so good.

While we were fighting the good fight all over the country, a significant number of the club members have achieved selection to represent Great Britain in the following events:-

This has involved vast quantities of both physical and mental work, with various battles being fought out either in O1s or just the minds of the paddlers.

“Only the boldest of mind and strongest of heart dare ride the Dragon’s wake”

Again the results of these competitions are posted on the BDA website and are now a matter of record, the number of club paddlers involved is huge.

Stockton involved about 30 of our members, Shanghai a smaller number 8 and Berlin 26 paddlers with hoards of supporters (I actually counted 37 members at one time in the hotel reception).

Since the last report we have competed as a club in two National Championships at the National Water sports Centre in Nottingham.

In 2004 we took over 70 paddlers and supporters but this year we have 93 paddlers and a whole raft of supporters, helping to create a tremendous atmosphere, a huge Amathus bubble.

The club members had come to battle the best teams from all over the country in a series of knockout races over three different distances. In both competitions our planning and preparation were second to none and our members were able to concentrate on their races effectively. Many thanks must go to Syd for the survival guide and all that flowed from it.

In both competitions the club competed in all of the racing classes and distances, fielding at least two crews in the open categories. This year showed a major change in that we entered four crews into the open competition and two crews in the mixed event.

Last year we successfully won the overall Colenorton trophy for the best overall club performance and only a quirk of the points system kept us from winning again this year. This reinforces that we have really risen to top club status in Great Britain.

Amathus Achieve Success

At National Championships

2005

This year saw Amathus take the largest squad we have ever had to the National Dragon Boat Championships at Nottingham this September.

The squad consisted of over 90 paddlers making up four separate teams. These teams competed in eight different competitions and won 19 different trophies

Open 4,Bees 4, Mixed 3 Ladies 3,Juniors 3,Pool of life 1 and

Plate competition

One of the most significant results was that of our Under 18’s team that won their National Championships for the 9^th time

It is worthy of note that in running the four teams through the competition this year we have really had to upgrade our levels of organisation. During the Saturday of the Championships this year, the club teams competed in a race every 18 minutes for over 9 hours of racing, an extraordinary statistic that just goes to show our potential.

First place in the open 500m event still remains elusive but I have to say that a time of 2-01 into a headwind would have been enough to win in any other season and was the standard I asked the team to achieve. Unfortunately the enemy always has a vote and the game has moved on. A thought, German club crews regularly achieve times of 1-56 so why can’t we, lets move the goalposts.

“Countless are the Dragon’s years but his eyes are crystal clear and he will never lose sight of his prey”

It is not rocket science to see that the only way in which these aspects can be developed is by taking part in the training being offered. Whatever your goals and aspirations, improved attendance at training will be a step towards its attainment.

We are going to be providing opportunities for members to develop the coaching and helming skills both in the training sessions and through a series of specific courses that will run either on Sundays or Saturdays. We have identified several members who we feel would benefit from this. You may or may not know this at the moment, if any of you wish to develop these skills please let us know and take advantage of the opportunities.

For some time now we have been in the position of being ahead of the game as far as coaching qualifications are concerned. Many of you have started working your way through the BDA Coaching Scheme but we have stalled a little due to the sheer number of things that have been going on. I intend to correct this and will be running coaching sessions over the next few months that address the various modules of the scheme.

I would like to see more of you involved in the coaching for a variety of reasons, none the least of which is in increasing the flow of knowledge and experience to the rising membership of the club. We have a huge range of knowledge, skills and experience in the club that is not being accessed by our membership as effectively at the moment. On a more mercenary note, fully qualified dragon boaters are going to be in great demand in the coming seasons as we have added the new dimension of 4 Dragons Ltd. to our activities and are now BDA Affiliated providers of Dragon Boat services.

The commercial side of Dragon Boating is much larger than people are aware, over 100,000 people took part in Dragon Boating last year of which on about 2000 were on the BDA circuit we intend to bring more of those people to Amathus and its activities and also make members aware that there is a possible source of revenue for those wishing to be involved.

Looking at the way in which things are going with our increased membership and the range of abilities, we are going to have more people involved in running the club sessions. I am brilliant I know but trying to coach three boats at the same time is clearly not the most effective thing to do. We have an enormous amount of talent within our members and we would like to harness this, developing members who can run full sessions by themselves within an overall plan.

“Ancient is the dragon’s way and steeped in forgotten power. He mourns not the passage of time but only the passing of lost opportunity”

This year for the first time we were able to carry out a series of time trials in order to select our crews for the National Championships, I believe that this activity was very successful. This again reflects the more mature nature of our membership and our desire to improve the standards of our teams. I intend to move this forward next season and will be elaborating the trial procedure to incorporate the use of the O1.

Having spent several years now looking at trial procedures, it is clear that there is no one trial that is perfect. The results from the paddle ergo over the last two years has shown it to be a good measure of one’s potential performance but does not show the actual capacity to use a paddle in the water. We will be using a proportional system which allows paddlers to show their capability in either the Trapper or the O1.

These trials will be going on from the start of the season and hopefully will allow us to produce more effective teams throughout the season and also allow members to monitor their own training.

New O1s will be available in the near future and I am hoping that increasing numbers of members will be taking advantage of their use to upgrade their training and improve their techniques over the coming months.

“Dare to summon the dragon but be aware that the merest touch of a dragon’s mind may alter your perception of life forever”

Last year we tried a new form of Christmas celebration with our visit to the Bala Lake Hotel, situated on the edge of Bala Lake itself. The idea was to have a water session on Saturday on the lake followed by a Christmas meal and social at the Hotel.

This proved to be very successful and was extremely well received by the members who attended. We trained hard, had a great meal, a good social followed by lots of silliness ending in “Blarney Stones” late into the night.

An excellent event, didn’t you lot scrub up well. Many thanks to our new club treasurer Peter for organising. We hope to have another similar event soon.

Over the past two seasons we have not only run our own league events but also Charity events supporting the NSPCC. Once again we were very well supported by our club officials and catering team who did an excellent job which together with the help from our other club members enabled several thousands of pounds to be raised for charity.

Bought at a cost of over £8500 and launched in 1993, Lady A was the first true racing boat that the club has owned. Made in Hartlepool by Chris Hare Marine, she was the first of the new generation of split boats. Built with our own special livery of the Green Dragon flowing down the side she was splendid. Racing very effectively through this season she helped us win our first National League title.

She was formally launched at the National Championships in 1993 when Blue Peter followed our under 18s crew to one of their many National Titles and assisted us winning our first “Best Club Award”

She is badly in need of some TLC and we are aiming to give her a rebuild and a new lease of life in the new year. Helpers will be required.

Thanks to the hard work and resourcefulness of Paul and Joanne together with some determined negotiating we were finally able to add a new boat to our fleet. With a carbon fibre hull built in Poland and Dutch woodwork, Amber arrived in the early hours of the morning at the port of ‘arich! (meaningful for those who were there). She is yet another beautiful addition to the club and is an excellent boat to race in. We will be welcoming her formally into the club later

The café continues to be a very effective and important to the club, we are aiming to improve this as a resource by altering the fittings in the kitchen and putting up a permanent notice board. We will need helpers here.

The sheer number of people on site is becoming an increasing problem to the centre management with issues such as car parking. It is a wonderful problem to have and we are aiming to upgrade all of our procedures to improve the experience for club members. Again any ideas will be welcome.

We now have a functional website www.amathusdbc.com which I am running, it is a little slow and primitive but will develop in the future. The purpose if this website is not only to act as an advert for the club but also to increase communication pathways. At the moment we are not able to contact, communicate with and educate you, our members, as effectively as we would like.

As part of our review of the club procedures we are also looking at this area and again ideas will be welcome.

Why do we have a club account and a treasurer. This is so that the club can make things happen that would not happen if we had to wait for funds. As club manager, I have not set out with the purpose of making money, far from it. I have the purpose of making things happen for the club members. This unfortunately becomes interpreted as me being soft about money, I am but the club cannot afford to be.

I do not like asking people for their membership fees or race entry fees, payments for paddles etc., I am not very good at it. However, we are very pleased to have accepted Peter’s offer to take over the role of Treasurer as he is very good at all those jobs.

We are trying to improve the system of fees and payments , please do your bit, recognise what has been paid for on your behalf and provided for you and pay up accordingly.

“Vast is the Dragons’ mind, their interwoven and elegant thoughts soar over the insignificant flutterings in the minds of mortals”

Let us focus on developing our systems and procedures that will encourage more dragons to appear and continue to become involved with Amathus.

We have a wish list of goals for the club to achieve in the future, please take the opportunity to find out what these goals are if you do not already know.

Next season is likely to be as exciting as the last and we will let you have a dates list as soon as it has been completed but as always it will be necessary for us to get into gear as early as possible, we may have a National League race as early as the start of April.

We are also aiming to do the Vongalonga Race in Venice on the 4^th of June, 1500 boats of all kinds racing around he canals of Venice, mayhem, Mal will be in heaven.

“Summon not the aid of a dragon, the price may by more than mortals can pay”

Special thanks and praise must go to some particular club members who have made and continue to make substantial contributions to the club and its activities.

“May you dreams glitter like the iridescent scales of the dragon’s wings, soaring into the sky”

Just some key points that members need to know at this present moment in time

This is a change in the format of the AGM from the past in line with the changing membership of the club and its increased maturity. The idea has been to move the meeting to coincide with the feedback from the racing season and to provide us with a chance to celebrate what we have achieved more recently and to lay out some plans for the future.

In many organisations, the AGM is the time for people to come with gripes and hassle the management. Our policy is somewhat different, my expectation is that if you have something to say or an issue to resolve, we have regular meetings on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Thursdays and Sundays when we are around to discuss all and any of the aspects of the club.

The meeting is a social during which we will present the accounts, have a manager’s report, present certificates and the club trophies to special members and welcome Amber fully into the club by an eye dotting ceremony.

The idea of the marina is to give a bigger, better and more friendly place to do this, the cost covers the room hire and a really good buffet, please make every effort to support the club in its efforts to make things better for us all.

It is not rocket science to see that the only way in which these aspects can be developed is by taking part in the training being offered, whatever your goals and aspirations, improved attendance at training will be a step towards its attainment.

We have set up a new egroup for passing out information this is separate from the old social egroup. Please email Syd or Dave to make contact with the group. it is hoped that this will aid the flow of information around club members

This event represents a significant step forward for the club, being able to put out two teams at a venue that is so far away shows the sort of commitment and desire that we have within our membership.

As well as the National League race, about 25 of our members were involved in the GB training session that took place on Saturday. This meant that many of our members had to go to Exeter on Friday.

Our journey started in the normal manner, landrover checks, trailer repairs, leaving from the farm at about 6-30pm. The journey as usual was regularly punctuated by members checking details, confirming arrangements sending apologies for not being able to attend. Our normal apprehension at this time was then increased by an overheating engine, split hose, long wait, RAC, new hose etc., then on our way. We arrived at about 3-30am very glad of a fairly large car park in the travel Lodge and the thought of a relatively late start the next day.

Saturday arrived bright and sunny, the clubhouse was soon alive and buzzing with Dragon boaters. The GB Juniors, Senior Women and Men soon had their squads out on the water and working towards their goals in Berlin. In my role as Director of Coaching I had the privilege of being able to work with each of these teams and was extremely encouraged by both their current performances and their willingness to seek ways in which they could improve by the time of the event in Berlin. My personal thanks go to the members of Excalibur who made their facility and boats available to the squads, it worked very well.

Saturday evening was spent with the seniors in the Globe restaurant in Topsham again organized by Claire, a very nice meal and lots of positive conversation about how we can make our club even better and attract even more people to join with us.

Sunday arrived; bright and sunny again, there will be some burnt skin by the end of the day. To breakfast on time but it takes 45 minutes to make our tea. We have to leave without it before Barbara throttles the waitress.

We arrive at the slipway just on time and are pleased to see some of our members present together with others who are in the process of getting the boats on the water. Within 10 minutes we see the arrival of the main band of Amathus members who join forces with those from Thames and BA. After much pulling, pushing, lifting and carrying, the boats are on the water and moving to the race sight on the other side of the river. The club members walk to the race venue and set up a base out of the sun, I join the other divers scratching about for a parking place. I arrive at base camp at 9-45.

The first races are on soon and we have two teams to organize, paddlers need to be informed of the plans, team lists checked and handed in, fees paid money collected, etc. A tight programme has been written with 10 minutes between races, this always proves difficult for our Bees when they are racing back to back with our open team. Amber may not be available and the pool boats are not of the same standard.

Within the hour both teams have raced and battle has commenced, concerned discussions ensue about lane advantages, depth, start procedures, race strategies etc. We scan the results board for information about the speed of the opposition and make our plans to optimize our performance during the day. The prime goal of the club is to provide excellent quality racing for our members and allow them to feel that they have been able achieve their full potential on the day. Once again we were able to use or experience and knowledge to find ways in which are members could be focused and switched on to the racing. In a venue such as this it was very easy to become distracted from the racing, the heat, the dehydration, the scantily clad women and men. etc.

As we moved through the day both crews improved their performances and we were further encouraged by a second place result in the 200m event by our open squad.

In the 500m event the target for both crews was to make the major finals of the two competition classes, cup and plate. The bees had some very tight races and this was further compounded by the fact that the programme would not allow us to switch helms between races and Mal had to take on the task of helming them.

We battle on through the day and there is a noticeable lift in confidence and spirit that corresponds to us giving time to getting our minds right for racing. Each of our teams is proud and supportive of the other, particularly when they are out on the water, they both look brilliant.

The teams both make their main objectives and reach their major finals, a problem is created as this meant back to back races for Amber. Discussions with officials and the other teams concerned resolved the issue to a fast and efficient changeover which was complemented by the race officials.

The Bees had yet another photo finish, coming second by the smallest of margins, a brilliant result.

The open squad lined up in lane 1 with Batchworth and Thames in lanes 2 and 3. This was going to be a tough race and it was, we were concerned about lane 1 but the only option was to battle through and give our best account. At the end I had convinced myself that we had come 3^rd and was a little down as we had beaten Thames in the morning. I consoled myself with the idea that it was not a bad result from lane 1 and that we had paddled extremely well. I was much encouraged to find that we had actually come 2^nd an excellent performance.

At the end of the event we made the time to get together as a club and talk through the day and how we were going to finish it off. The result was that many hands went to work putting away the kit and getting the boat loaded on the trailer. This job is so much easier when there are lots of helpers.

By 6-45, the boat was loaded and we were on the way home, the journey though long was uneventful and full of reflection about the achievements that had been made by the club over the weekend. Tiredness was also dispelled by a brilliant 60’s sing along compilation provided by Barbara.

Many thanks to all the club members who both travelled a long way and worked hard to make this event so successful for the club.

My thanks also go to Nigel, the other officials and members of Excalibur who made this event possible