中文/Chinese    Previous news    More about GDBA (Home)

11 August 2005

Festival events line-up

I take liberty to send this Newsletter to update you on what's happening at Gauteng Dragon Boat Association. Should you feel that you are not ready for this colourful, team-building, festive-style cultural sport, please accept my apologies and reply with the word 'remove' typed in the subject column.

STARTING OF 2005 LEAGUE SEASON

The launch of Gauteng Dragon Boat league racing will be at held Florida Lake on 27 August 2005. It will be sponsored by Regions 3,4 & 5 and Florida Lake DBC. The categories will be as usual (Premier, Youth, Corporates & regions). Region 3, 4 & 5 and the PWD (people with disability) schools will not pay an entry fee, the clubs will pay R20.00 per head and schools R10.00 per head. Competition classes will open when there are 3 or more entries.

CITY OF JOHANNESBURG HERITAGE FESTIVAL DRAGON BOAT RACE

The event forms part of South Africa's Heritage national holiday, from the experience gathered in the past, the staging of a dragon boat regatta on one of Johannesburg's lakes gives highlight to the celebration of cultural diversity in our rainbow nation.

The event will take place at Florida Lake, Roodepoort on Sunday 25 September (event bulletin and entry forms can be found HERE), please take the advantage of dragon boat racing to bond your members and celebrate group success!

GDBA SHOWS TRUE COLOURS AT THE "YARONA" CARNIVAL

Organised by the Department of Sport, Recreation, Arts and Culture of Gauteng provincial government and takes place on Saturday 10 September at Jo'burg Zoo in a 6.5km parade, Gauteng Dragon Boat Association has accepted the invite and will stage a dragon dance (proudly performed by Chung Wah Youth Association), a humongous ceremonial wooden dragon boat on trailer, in total approximately 50 crew members will show our colours in the carnival.

As cultural front-runners, GDBA welcomes all organisations wishing to display its cultural representation and functions in front of tens of thousands of fellow South Africans to join us in the parade, let's celebrate our heritage while drawing awareness on our presence.

PARYS 'DOME FESTIVAL'

As a world heritage site, the beautiful town will host it second 'Dome Festival' dragon boat regatta on 16 October 2005. Approximately 20 teams are expected to take part in the event, GDBA is very proud to have assisted our partners in the Free State by bringing dragon boat racing as one of the highlights in the festival. Once again, if you would like to take an easy drive out of Johannesburg an join us in the fun, you are more than welcome to contact us.

GDBA HOME WATER NOW AT FLORIDA

It is with regret that Golden City Dragon Boat Club - GDBA's first and one of the backbone clubs - had to discontinue its lease with Wemmer Pan Aquatic Club due to unaffordable rental. The good news is, Golden City DBC moves on and is in the process of acquiring its own club land at Wemmer Pan Lake through the help of the city council. The aquatic club has nested Gauteng's dragon boat community for 7 years, relationship has nothing but strengthened through the commonwealth of water sport. We will continue to work with WPAC in the everyway we can.

In the meantime, GDBA's home water is now based at Florida Lake, Roodepoort where most of our activities will take place. Thanks to the active participation of Johannesburg's Region 4 Office, invaluable contribution has been made by the Office towards the development of our sport, the generosity is well conceived and is immediately projected through our hard work to the benefit of schools, disabled and other under-privileged children in the area and beyond.

TEAM BUILDING

For any corporate company which wishes to take the advantage of dragon boat racing to develop team work and group success, GDBA has a 'mini-league' in place just for that purpose. The package will only cost the company R3 000 per team (of 21 pax) for 2 months which will include 2 coaching sessions and one corporate league competition. This will entitle the company to move on to the premier section of our festival events as 'basic club' and you will be charged the same entry fee as the Premier clubs and not at corporate tariff.

As it stands, corporate companies only taking part in our festival events and not as 'basic clubs' in the mini-leagues pay R3 000 to enter.

On the other hand, corporate companies are also welcome to book a once-off team-building seminar at a rate of R4 500 per team, which includes 3 hours of non-stop team building but excluding transport, insurance and accommodation where applicable. This tariff is subject to change from season to season.

More updates to follow. Click here for contact info.