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News from Sistership, Canada

To celebrate our 25th Anniversary of paddling after breast cancer we launched a TikTok channel and a LinkedIn page.http://www.linkedin.com/in/sistership-dragonboat-assosciation-25-years-stronghttps://www.tiktok.com/@sistershipdbI am a rookie paddler, just fresh from my journey with cancer and I can say that paddling with this team in this sport has changed my life. It keeps healing. We are fierce and we have a fabulous message.Take good care,Paddles Up!Hope to hear from you!JenNews from Sistersh...

Reach for Recovery (Australia)

There are many organisations that support breast cancer survivors. This is one of them and may be of interest to people.I am the President of Reach to Recovery International (RRI), which serves as an umbrella organisation for other organisations and individuals working in their own countries and communities to improve the quality of life of individuals affected by breast cancer including families. We do this through peer support, advocacy, and peer navigation.We have members throughout the world...

Updates from Around the Globe

News from CanadaCanadian Dragon Boat Championships - July 20-24, 2023, Welland, Ontario, Canada.IBCPC Board Member and Rowbust Team Captain Perspective - Linda KuskaI first must CONGRATULATE all the BCS teams who came to the 2023 Canadian Dragon Boat Championships! It was a very exciting few days of racing and for many of you, the first time competing at Nationals!BCS Standard Boat Division:Canal Dragons Hope Floats - Welland, OntarioDragons Abreast - Toronto, OntarioH2O Seincr'eau - Montreal, Q...

Updates from Brazil

The “Encontro Estadual de Remadoras Rosa do Paraná”, which took place on April 13, 14 and 15, 2023, in Curitiba city, only became possible and viable due to the commitment and responsibility of the leader’s team of the ROSA DOS VENTOS (Londrina city), FLOR DE LOTUS (Foz do Iguaçu citu) and CANOHÁ (Curitiba city).The teams from the state of Paraná met in advance, virtually, and made a commitment to hold this event, with the following objective: to build a solid foundation for training D...

News from Chemo Savvy, Canada

We had our first local Dragon Boat Festival of the season!We entered three boats of paddlers!We had an amazing presence at this festival!...

International Connections

By Meri GibsonHow easy is it to connect, extremely so it would seem.I received a WhatsApp message from Irene Chui our national representative to Singapore.It read: Hi Meri, do you know any teams in Germany because I’m going to be going over there for work for 10 days and I’d like to be able to paddle.Sure Irene, let me introduce you to Svenja Franke-Bruhn our national representative for Germany.Ladies say hi to each other, Svenja can you help Irene.The rest is as they say, history, with Iren...

Waves of Hope

Waves Of Hope had an official ribbon cutting for our sign at Minnedosa Lake in Minnedosa, Manitoba where we practice.We are sure we have the biggest pink sign around. SSome gals travel 2 hours to practice.We hope this will catch everyone’s eye and aid in our recruitment efforts!!!...

Updates from Europe

Go Europe Pink Dragons 1st edition or: Teamwork to make a (COVID) dream come true.Let´s go back in time… Don´t we all remember the year 2020 when many countries didn't allow meeting in person due to the pandemic? When people were restricted to staying at home? These times of lockdown were the beginning of a dream, and this dream has become reality 3 years later with a composite team of pink paddlers united from various European teams supported by some pink friends from Israel and the US.When...

News from the WonderBroads

The WonderBroads of Windsor and Essex County celebrated their 20-year anniversary with a party on July 8th.All team members, supporters and contributors to the team were invited to join in the festivities.We had our dragon boat at the site and started by having some of our new members and our Coach dot the eyes of the dragon.Our Assistant Coach and a founding member, Peggy Hurley, along with a few other founding members spoke about our early beginnings and our 20-year journey as a team.We rememb...

Angels Abreast

The Nanaimo Dragon Boat Festival 2023 celebrated its 20th anniversary of the festival where the Angels Abreast team was integral in the beginning of the Nanaimo Festival.We hosted a Friday night dinner for all the Survivor teams with food, music, and dancing! One special event at the dinner is to celebrate first year survivors and every year after, circling around the years of survival with many tears and feeling of sisterhood.The Survivor Challenge took place on Saturday where all survivors rac...

Updates from Latin and South America

Rosas Del PlataCELEBRATION IN PINKby Matilde Yahni, IBCPC National Representative to ArgentinaThe members of Rosa Del Plata don’t need an excuse to party. Our Argentine team of 55 paddlers love delicious food, good music, dancing, and any reason to bring the team together. A group of ladies on our team volunteered to form our “birthday celebration committee”, and they work hard to surprise our 55 BCS pink paddlers at every event with special guests and treats. They invite musicians: jazz s...

Festival 2023

Submitted by Meri GibsonTo recap on the festival, my speech notes for all occasions at which I had the privilege to speak are in the following articles:Meet and Greet EveningCongress OpeningFestival 2023 OpeningFestival 2023 ClosingHere are the videos from the Dragon Boat Festival.Highlights of the 4 days of the Festival Event...

Festival Opening

Welcome Speech for the Festival Opening, 14th April 2023Tena koutou , tena koutou, Tena koutou Katoa.Ko Meri Gibson Taku ingoa,ko kaiwhakahaere International Breast Cancer Paddlers Commission,ko kaiwhakahaere Aotearoa Wahine Toa Ora Trust,Ko Aoraki te Maunga, ko Waimakariri te awa, no Otautahi ahau, ki uta ki tai.No reira, kia ora, huihui mai tatouThank you, Richard, for the introduction. I am Meri Gibson, the President of the International Breast Cancer Paddlers Commission, and the Chair of Aot...

From the desk of the President

From the Desk of Meri Gibson, IBCPC Global President.Oh, my goodness…….wow, wow, and wow.That is all I can say in terms of how amazing the festival in New Zealand was. I know I am biased as it was in my home country, and I know I was behind the bid to bring the festival to New Zealand. but I also know how hard everyone worked from the day the bid was placed to when we won the bid and then the planning began.Each moment of each day was inspirational regardless of what was on offer. The spirit...

Congress (part 2)

Meri's Speech for Congress opening, 14th May 2023 (continued)I would like to thank our keynote speakers with a small gift of appreciation for sharing your incredible skills and knowledge with us all today.Everyone please show your appreciation in the usual way.Andrew Watson, our health and safety director and himself a medical professional will escort our keynotes out as we move onto the Congress business at hand.Elections I am disappointed that of the over 15,000 paddlers globally that we only ...

Congress (part 1)

Speech for Congress opening, 14th May 2023Nau mai, haere mai. Tena kotou katoaWelcome to you all.I would like to acknowledge Paula Southgate, Mayor Hamilton, for her welcomeAlso, to acknowledge our three keynote speakers:Professor Ian CampbellLady Tureti MoxonAssociate Professor Logan Walker.Also, here with us today we have European Dragon Boat Federation President and IDBF 4th Vice President Claudio Schermi.And two doctors traveling with the UGO team from Italy.We are so excited to see the repr...

Meet and Greet Evening

Speech for Meet and Greet evening, 14th April 2023Tena koutou, Tena Koutou, Tena KoutouKo Meri Gibson taku ingoa, ko kaiwhakahaere International Breast Cancer Paddlers Commission. Ko Kaiwhakahaere Aotearoa Wahine Toa Ora Trust.Nor reira kia Ora hui hui my tatou.Oh, my goodness how wonderful to see you all here tonight.The purpose of this evening is to give you the opportunity to mix and mingle, to catch up with old friends, make new friends, create memories.The formalities will begin tomorrow wi...

Festival Closing

Closing ceremony speech, Sunday 16th April 2023Several you have asked me what pretty dress I would be wearing for the closing. Trust me I do have a few with me to choose from, BUT as I have said all along, first and foremost I am a paddler, so paddling gear it is.Oh, my goodness…….wow, wow, and wow.That is all I can say in terms of how amazing this festival in New Zealand has been.I know I am biased as it was in my home country, and I know I was behind the bid to bring the festival to New Ze...

Pink Phoenix Celebration of Life

Submitted by Sioux Kriss, President, Pink Phoenix Dragons.I asked Meri Gibson for permission a few weeks ago to read the Dragon Flowers poem by Berni Veale at the Pink Phoenix Celebration of Life, and Meri asked that I send a picture in return.Attached you will see several pictures. Since our team is now 27 years old, we have.a long list of Pink Angels - 55 as April 12. (Yes, our last paddler passed at home with her family while we were in New Zealand.)Our Celebration of Life ceremony is an annu...

40 Reason Why "Exercise is Medicine"

40 Reasons Why Dragon Boat Paddling is Brilliant for Breast Cancer Survivors.From Vancouver Island Dragon Boat teams.I want to share my 40 reasons why dragon boat paddling is brilliant, especially after a breast cancer diagnosis:It’s great for improving range of movement at the shoulderIt’s great for improving general fitnessIt’s great for improving strengthIt’s great for improving flexibilityIt’s great for improving core stabilityIt’s great for improving coordinationIt’s great for...

Irish Teams

From Marion Egan, IBCPC National Representative for Ireland.The Irish teams have had a very busy start to our training and racing season. Regatta season is underway with our first Irish regatta taking place in Athy in April.In May, three teams from Ireland travelled to the 4th Barcelona International Dragon Boat festival. Lagan Dragons, Plurabelle Paddlers and Suir Dragons competed in 200m and 500m races in both BCS and open categories. Apart from a weekend of tough racing, the event provided an...

Numbers, Numbers, and More Numbers

Submitted by Meri GibsonI am fascinated by statistics and whilst they can be very subjective based on the information that you receive, they do help to give you guiding principles by which to work and in our case, they are what we have used to look at how we grow this organisation globally via establishing more breast-cancer teams in every corner of the world.I have often used the New Zealand numbers as a benchmark for what is possible, we were early adopters of breast cancer dragon boat paddlin...

IBCPC - Missabittatitti Australia

Reflections of a first-time competitor. Wrangling 113 participants. Missabittatitti (MBT) from Australia did just that.Submitted by Sally BallIBCPC 2023. What can I say but WOW!18 months ago, I attended my first come and try session with Dragons Abreast Brisbane – Team Missabittatitti. After one session I was hooked – not only to the paddling but being surrounded by others who had also been through a breast cancer diagnosis. With IBCPC only 18 months away, plans were already in full swing fo...

Vienna Pink Dragons at Lake Karapiro

Summary of the participation of the Vienna Pink Dragons International team at Lake Karapiro, New Zealand 2023Submitted by Svenja Franke-BruhnJust over a month ago, the IBCPC Festival in New Zealand came to an end.It was an honor and pure pleasure for Helen as Team Manager and me (Svenja) as Team Captain to accompany the Vienna Pink Dragons International Team to this international festival for the second time.Many of the participants took advantage of the long journey to travel to New Zealand and...

Global Paddling

We always say that you should be able to go anywhere in the world and hop into a dragon boat and paddle. This lovely letter came to our team in Christchurch after we had the fabulous Celine on board with us from the Plurabelle Paddlers, Ireland.Hi Ladies,Greetings from the Emerald Isle.I arrived back in Dublin, Ireland, last Sunday 19th March, and am about over the jetlag by now !I would like to thank you all for your very warm welcome you afforded me when I paddled with you recently in Christch...