Dragonboat Festival coming up!! 4th June

The Parkinson Ward Dragonboat and Multicultural Festival will be held on Saturday 4th June at the lake at Forest Lake.  This is the second time this festival has been held and once again, the AMBCQ has been invited to be on the organising committee. The festival, has been instigated by Cr Angela Owen-Taylor with the support and coordination of the Hakka Association.  The Rotary Club of Forest Lake and the Dragonboat Association are also lending their strong support to the event, as our a number of other community and business councils.  Last year's event attracted several thousand people.

This year the AMBCQ will have a food stall, run by Gomethi Chendi who owns and runs the Blue Gulabi restaurant at Woollongabba. Gomethi has very kindly volunteered to run the stall and donate the profits to the AMBCQ. Gomethi will be offering Indian/Malaysian fare.  As many will recall, it is only about one month ago that a car plunged through the Blue Gulabi with one patron and the driver hurt.  Remarkedly, Gomethi got her restaurant up and running again very quickly and has maintained her commitment to Dragonboat festival. 

We have also combined with the Singapore Business Council to field an amateur Dragonboat team, in the Hakka Association's Amateur Dragonboat Challenge. On the day we will be racing on Forest Lake against other amateur teams.  We have already had one training day - our next day is tomorrow.  The Dragonboat training sessions are at Colmslie on the Brisbane River.

The training has been a magnificent experience, rowing on this beautiful part of the river during the lovely autumn days we are currently having. And I have myself been surprised at how much I have enjoyed the Dragonboat experience. I was a bit sporty throughout my school days, but my sports were often quite individualistic. I find that Dragonboat racing was such a different sport - the prowess of the individual is not as important, it is the individual's ability to row in a way that fits in with the abilities and pace of the rest of the team. Many other team sports, such as basketball, or volleyball, or soccer, are about teamwork, but you will see teams relying on one or two exceptional players.  This sport is very much about the team working together in a very cohesive way. If one tries to display exceptional talent, they will most likely end up clashing paddles with the other rowers!

We still have some room for more rowers!  If you or your friends would like to get involved, please contact me asap!