Dragon Boat West

So does anybody know what's going on in Calgary? Festival dates? or even when practices in actual dragon boats can begin?

It's confirmed for Aug 8-9.  There's a team captains meeting this Wed. to discuss the practice schedule and procedures.

So any updates? I've heard it's the city taking it's sweet ass time. Anybody know why?

You want an update here it is as of today.

Sent: Sat Jun 06 13:54:54 2009
Subject: Status of 2009 Dragon Boat Festival
Greetings everyone,
 
It is with regret that I inform you of the postponement of this year's event until next year.  There are many unresolved issues that remain and given the short time period remaining before the scheduled event, the responsible course of action was to postpone the event.  This will allow the new Foundation to work with the City on the remaining issues in order to have a sustainable event for everyone to enjoy in the future.  While I know it is disappointing for everyone including the Organizing Committee volunteers who have invested a tremendous amount of time and effort to date, this course of action was necessary in order to preserve the event for everyone to enjoy in the future.
 
I will work with the City to transition the practices to the control of the Topmade Dragon Boat Club since the insurance coverage for the practices will be under their organization.  Once the transition is completed I will be sending out another communication to everyone that attended the Team Information Session.
 
In the mean time the City approved practice times for the North Glenmore Park docks are as follows:
•   Weekday early session Boat 1 is 5:45 to 7 pm; late session Boat 1 is 7:15 to 8:30 pm
•   Weekday early session Boats 2 & 3 is 6:00 to 7:15 pm; late session Boats 2 & 3 is 7:30 to 8:45 pm
•   Weekend session for Boats 1 & 2 starts at 9 am and the last session is at 4:30 pm
•   Weekend session for Boat 3 starts at 9:15 am and the last session is at 4:45 pm
•   All practices are 75 minutes long
•   The practice times listed above are the departure times from the North Glenmore Park docks as agreed upon between the City and the CCC / CRC user groups in order to reduce congestion so please don't be late or it may become an issue resulting in the suspension of practices
•   Everyone is required to have a properly completed and signed waiver before they are allowed to practice
If you have any questions regarding the above please contact me at this email address.  In the mean time, I wish everyone continued success with your dragon boating season.
 
Regards,
 
Jim Fong,
2009 Race Director & Festival Chair

Well that BLOWS huh!  :shock:  :wtf:

I will admit that I haven't the foggiest idea as to how come it has come down this path but hopefully it will be something that is going to be sadly missed by all invested parties.  :think:   And if it truly isn't going to happen this year I am sure it will be something specatular next year. Whatever the reasons are lets hope things can be resolved, sooner rather than later!  :wall: Good luck to all organizers in Calgary. Heres to hoping the event can either be salvaged in time for this year or returns next year as something even bigger and better!

Wow?? Is this for real? And our team was so looking forward to participating in this festival... I wonder what we can do during that weekend now... we're from the Edmonton area and aren't too keen in participating in the Edmonton festival...

This is embarrassing - even Edmonton is having a festival!  It seems Calgary is the only city in Western Canada that won't have a dragon boat festival.  :oops:
How I envy those west coast paddlers!
 

Maybe the lack of the race in Calgary will help increase the profile of dragon boat racing in Lethbridge, Banff and Red Deer.

WOW...  someone or someones really had to screw up to pull this one off.  I mean really, is it that hard to have a festival in Calgary?  I'm not naive to think that there aren't certain procedures and guidelines that are required, but we had a year to figure all this stuff out?  It's really disappointing and frustrating so can someone just be HONEST and tell us what is going on?  I can guarantee there are going to be some angry people and we all love to play the blame game, so if anyone can enlighten us on the REAL reason why there isn't going to be a festival I think we'll be a little bit more understanding.

It would be interesting to see if the cancellation does impact numbers at the other close festivals like Banff and Lethbridge.  Maybe a resurrection of Sylvan?  I have a feeling that most teams gung ho enough to travel already do, but maybe this will push a couple teams over the edge and step up to the addicitve world of dragonboat vacationing.

Two years ago when Sylvan Lake got cancelled there was a tiny informal afternoon of racing that took place in Calgary.  Only about 9 teams or so, but came from as far as Medicine Hat.  That was actually pretty fun, although still required a ton of work from a few people.

Edmonton has two races, Leduc and Edmonton proper  :(

Point of clarification, regarding the CCC / CRC usergroups in Magicpaddler's forward, I believe in this case CRC stands for Calgary Rowing Club (not us!).

The "real" reason supposedly has to do with governance and insurance. The City of Calgary apparently has a bad taste in its mouth from its dealings with the ADBRF, who used to organize the event, and wants to make sure that situation isn't repeated. Frankly, I think the ball has been droped big time. My wish would be for a group of dedicated dragon boat paddlers to take over this event, it seems to me that the actual paddlers have been completely left out of this whole process. :(

You are so right Martini.  Maybe this "governance" issue is exactly that-not enough inclusion of the paddlers.  The tricky part is knowing where to begin, and then wrestling control from the current powers that be.  It could be painful, but your suggestion might be the best solution to this mess.  It would be interesting to know what other cities do.

Unless the City and the Organizing Committee make some major headway in resolving the "outstanding issues", I guess this pretty much rules out Calgary as a potential host city for the 2010 DB National Club Crews. Dragonboat Canada is suppose to award the 2010 Nationals to the Western Region later this year at their AGM.

That would be a shame. Glenmore is the ideal venue for such an event. However, the positive is that it gives another city the opportunity to step up and host a great event. Kelowna? Vancouver? Penticton? Whistler?

So which Calgary teams are still competing this season?
I'm assuming we'll have the core group of CRC, Topmade, Dragnum, and Crew Yahoo sticking it out.  Who else?  It would be awesome if we could have a strong presence at out of town festivals just to show the dragonboat community that, despite
 all the drama going on, Calgary teams are still contenders.

I think there is at least one Sistership team, maybe more??  What about the banks' teams?

I'm just not sure how we go about doing it - the wrestling away control bit. I'm not even sure how the current powers came to power. It's all very mysterious. I don't know if you were at the information meeting last week but one comment that I found interesting was if you wanted to become involved on the board you basically had to give up paddling. That makes zero sense to me. Shouldn't the organization be run by paddlers for paddlers. I understand the City has concerns with governance and how the ADBRF was run but surely those concerns could be addressed with a proper organizational structure. It makes no sense to me that the organization should be run be people who have no stake in it. I get the sense that too many people have seen the festival as an opportunity to make money, when really it should be about the paddling.  Its very frustrating.

Hmm, I wonder where "Founder" is...  :P
(Check last year's thread if you don't follow me)

Hopefully someone can sort this out before the sport dies in that city.  There are plenty of viable clubs that are in danger of losing their major event.  While road trips are not the end of the world for the truly dedicated, the beginners and those without a fair chunk of spare time may be left out.  Not sure how practices out on Chestermere would go - I've never paddled out there, but they do need to dredge the lake quite often.

I too, have noticed that our buddy, Founder has been strangely silent (not that he ever clears up any confusion anyway).
Practices at Chestermere are okay, but it's a pretty small area where the dragon boats are allowed to be.  Glenmore is better.

and not to mention FAR.

I miss Glenmore!

I really don't know if this is a "powers that be" kind of discussion.  I know that the Topmade paddlers who were involved in organizing last year were completely exhausted by their efforts, even with a lot of very visible support from Topmade Signs.  That may be why the City is looking for someone who is not involved in paddling to be the event organizer.  As for ADBRF, I really do not know what happened there, but the City's statement said that they had given them multiple opportunities to resolve the problems they had and were not satisfied with their efforts.  (yup-pretty vague)

Hope we can get back on track for next year.  Mighty high price for a Dragon Boat lover to pay.  Give up paddling in order to have a festival in your city.

or give up your city (move) and stay paddling LOL jk

Well, if the dedicated paddlers of Calgary (or Edmonton) were looking for another festival in August they could hop on over to the beautiful city of Victoria and race in the most amazing setting for dragon boating in Canada.  Racing in the Inner Harbour in Victoria is a truly a unique experience.

August 14-16 are the dates and there are still some spots remaining...we already have a few Calgary teams making the trip, why not join the party?