Dragonboat day again! Sunday May 13^th, thankfully once more dry and more or less sunny for the most part. The great Gloucestershire public turned out again to support our popular, colourful event, though a few late cancellations left unfilled holes in the team competitors’ list. Nevertheless some 27 determined crews battled it out to win the much coveted “Gloucester Dragonboat Shield”, the eventual victors being the strangely named “Stinking & Sinking”.

Apart from the races themselves we had, as usual, Danters funfair in full swing, and a goodly number of stalls, plus some live entertainment, so much to keep families and youngsters interested for the duration of their visit to the Docks.

This was the 21^st year of the Dragonboat Regatta, some record indeed, and its popularity shows no sign of waning…preparations for May 2109 loom on the horizon! My thanks, as ever,  to my cohorts, Rog Barrett and John Barnes, whose efforts and enthusiasm in the background go unseen but are vital to the success of this fundraiser.

Thanks to to Derek Thomas for keeping me updated on a regular interval as to how we stand financially; to Roger Hart and Richard Allison and their team for supervising the “yellow boards”; to all Club members and, not forgetting, wives, for their support on the day stewarding, selling programmes, and making delicious home made cakes! 

Our Dragonboat Regatta has developed into one of Gloucester’s foremost family “day outs” and, I’m sure, does no harm from a PR perspective for the existence and work of our Club. Finding teams to enter gets no easier, and Club’s help with this in future would be much appreciated…but we truly have a charity fundraising event here which ticks all the boxes!

Steve