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Dragon Boat Canada


IDBF


Canoe Kayak Canada

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[Shaggin_Diamond]

Dear All,

As of November 22, 2009, SDR (Shaggin Dragons Reloaded) have folded due to loss of sponsorship from O'My.

We are very sad of this news as the team has been around for 15 years racing at local and away festivals (Rec A/B). We have a wonderful group of people and have usually had the majority of the team come back each year. We have also donated to charity funds from our fundraisers including BC Childrens Hospital, BC Cancer Agency and sponsored a youth team at Alcan (Youth Overboard) which we are very pleased to do to give back to the community.

We would like to thank everyone for your support over the years, the great races, the cheers, the friends we've made.  We would also like to say a public thank you to our well respected and loved coach, Dal Basra as he made a huge difference to our team over the last few years, coaching us to improve in divisions, work hard on the water and make us run up many hills if we drank too much the night before!  Dal thank you, you are a huge inspiration and we have been blessed to have such a dedicated, committed and wonderful coach for our team.

If your team are looking for experienced male and female paddlers (experience is anywhere from 1-10 years, average experience on our team is about 5 years), please e-mail me and I'd be happy to pass this information onto our former team members.

Best wishes to everyone in the DB community and again thank everyone for your support over the years.

Sincerely,

Guen
Team Manager

[Special K]

Why fold due to loss of sponsorship? You can always fundraise or shell out the $$$ individually. Shaggin Draggins no more . How unfortunate.

[minipaddler]

Why give up?  How many teams out there do not have sponsorship and are still going strong??  Off season fundraising seems to work.  Most people pay out their own $$$$ to make it happen.   Too bad you are folding as well as the youth team.  We need our youth to keep things growing in the paddling world.

[paddlecwazy]

I thought the exact same thing....if you're existing paddlers want to join other teams they will be asked to ante up fees in the range of $200 - $500 depending on what festivals the team does.

If they're willing to do that, they may as well stay together and paddle as SDR.

[zeus]

Shaggin, like a lot of other teams, existed before major sponsorship, and can do so again if they have the drive to do it. Unfortunately once you get used to lower fees its hard to cough it up again. So many teams (DB, softball, etc) have to work hard during the season and off-season to fundraise. If you look at the length of the DB season and generally fees like you say is 200-500 bucks, that is reasonable compared to other leagues. Frick a season of hockey runs at $1K easy!

If there is not a committment, then those paddlers should only look to other sponsored teams to join - which is fewer and fewer. A lot of it lies with lowering expectations so the number of festivals and value for money needs to be raised at the onset. Its unfortunate that if a group already exists that they fold because of this.

[Cricket]

Hopefully you didn't mean it to sound like this but it kinda looks like you are blameing the break up on your former sponsor

I'm not the sponsor but wouldn't it have been better to just simply thank them for their past support instead of saying due to the fact that they cannot provide sponsorship this year that your team has to fold?

The team doesn't HAVE to fold - where there's a will there's a way

someone would need to step up to organize

Perhaps there are other reasons for the breakup than just money?

 

[Swordfish]

It'll be sad to see you guys go.  I'll always remember with fondness the stamping and the lube.

Re: Teams folding.  Sponsorship or not, it takes a lot of time to commit to doing this year after year.  I had a look at the list of teams from Kelowna this year as opposed to 3 years ago where we ended up in the same place.  3 years ago, there were 6 teams to a heat instead of 5 and the divisions went down to Pearl.  That's a loss of about 40 teams - Synergy probably accounts for half of those teams .  I'm sure that's the same all around whether it be Alcan or Victoria or whatever.  It's unfortunate but there's just not enough people/teams to replace those that are folding.

[mandachan]

passion fuels everything.

if you have that, you got it made.

[nakedpaddler]

I think that whomever holds those "rubber" stamps has the job of getting that team to stay together ~ find other ways of fundraising ~ I know that there must be some underlying issues (not our business) that the team had to make to actually fold (BIG decision), other than just the sponsorship!

I do not believe that the junior team is still around, so when Guen says that they sponsored a junior team she is just reflecting on the accomplishments of SDR over the years.  

Good on your management skills and all of that as you guys were always a great team to race against and always a fun time off of the water with y'all!

Always good to mix things up a bit here and there.............makes it for more excitement on the water!

[Swordfish]

passion Bacon fuels everything.

if you have that, you got it made.

/fixed

[Shaggin_Diamond]

Hi Everyone,

Thank you for your comments and opinions, its always great to hear your feedback.  We have had so much positive support from fellow teams and many teams offering places to recruit our paddlers, so thanks everyone!  We are excited to join new teams, get out on the water and meet new people.

Sponsorhsip was not the only factor for our decision, but was an influencing factor.  For those of you who don't know our team, we all paid significant money each into our account including the mangers and we have (at least for the last 5 years) put on 2-3 fundraisers per year (at the Cellar, Shark Club, selling raffle tickets, Burger and Beer Nights, 50/50).  We have always done this in addition to our sponsorship and fees plus giving to charity.  Our youth team we sponsored this year will still be able to paddle in the future, so no need to panic!  They will still have a coach (SDR member) and ability to get out there and race at Alcan.

It was the right time to close the doors to SDR, but that does not mean any of us will no longer paddle/steer or call!
For some, our old bones are battered from injury, life duties take us away from the sport, the economic market drive what is affordable, babies are on their way, other sports to do, more outrigger, more dates to be had with George Clooney...you know its busy. 

Thanks everyone

Shaggin Dragons Reloaded

[NFW]

So...It was Shaggin Dragons at first, and then it was Shaggin Dragons Reloaded...
So in the future, its gonna be Shaggin Dragons Revolutions? lol (read: matrix)

[Shaggin_Diamond]

You never know...!

[Rob C]

I know a team looking for experienced paddlers

contact Team Mgr: [email protected]  for details

Rob C

[MS Paddler]

Hi there,
If you have paddlers still looking for a team, the MS Warriors are looking for a Volunteer paddler. There is no cost to join our team. You must be "Able Bodied" and able to assist the Team in and out of the boat and paddle on the team. We have
two folks in wheelchairs and the rest are on canes or can manage fairly well on their own. If anyone of your team is interested please have them email [email protected]. My name is Sue and I'm the Captain.
Thanks