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Spirit Warriors celebrate October Breast Cancer Month

The Spirit Warriors from Kamloops, British Columbia, Canada have lost a season of paddling due to the pandemic, just like everyone else. Not only have we missed paddling and being together but we have missed festivals which include a carnation ceremony we all look forward to. Every year It's been our grand finale on the water, with other survivors and the entire team. As our summer has come to an end, the Spirit Warriors decided to have our own carnation ceremony, without boats, on the Thompson ...

The world turns pink for breast cancer awareness month

Cecilia Picchi, European Rep - Florence DragonThe 'Old Continent' is walking towards the Winter season, and after a Summer with reduced COVID numbers, the pandemic is rapidly increasing again. Everybody is very worried about it. Restrictions follow one after another so rapidly in our countries, that it is difficult to be updated about rules, restaurants and bars, gyms and swimming pools, cinemas and theaters all closed or partially closed, evening curfew in 'movida' areas. This situation has man...

Update from Germany

Vienna, 29 October 2020Svenja Franke-BruhnWith the Pandemic since March and more lockdowns looming over us right now here in Europe with some already in place, I thought it would be nice to share some positive stories from the German speaking BCS teams. We have been fortunate to experience the camaraderie during the last months while exercising and even paddling together in some places depending on the rules.In Germany there have been quite a few positive stories to share, some of them have been...

Women Economic Forum (WEF)

We are extremely proud of the founder and captain of Rosas del Plata, Dr. Matilde Yahni for her work in lifting the global profile of breast cancer dragon boating.Matilde is a general practitioner practicing family medicine in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Over the last 250 days she has worked remotely (while the country is in various forms of COVID lockdown) to diagnose patients with COVID-19.Matilde and her team, Rosas del Plata, had a busy Pink October participating in talks and forums on cancer p...

Letter from the President

Greetings to you allAs COVID continues to keep a grasp on our lives and elections have taken place in many countries, let us hope that here is an appetite for change as we move forward towards 2021.I am constantly surprised by people’s behaviour towards each other and rightly or wrongly how they pursue their own agendas at the cost of others. According to the words of Stephen Covey along with the teachings in his book, “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People” he said:“Every human has fo...

IBCPC Newsletter - October 2019

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Update from the Pacific North West IBCPC rep Annette Johnson.

In the Pacific Northwest of the USA we hope to return to some sort of routine soon. Our dragon boat season is not going to happen as planned - we did get 3 practices in during the month of March, but we have been told that the entity that owns the boats that they will be taking them to storage since our local government order will not allow organized sports until the last phase - which we expect to be the end of September or early October. This is disappointing as we had 9 races scheduled as a t...

Appointment of new directors

Under sections 38 and 40 of the International Breast Cancer Paddlers Commission constitution “Director Vacancies”, the Steering Committee of IBCPC is seeking applications to fill vacancies until the Congress Meeting to be held in New Zealand in April 2022.An Expression Of Interest (EOI) document has been circulated to the IBCPC member team managers and national representatives.What we are specifically looking for?To assist the IBCPC strategy over the next five years we are looking for people...

Backyard Dragon Boating: How to make your own water tank for dragon boating training

Posted on the Hornet website on July 02, 2020Guest Blog Post by Laura ThornquistLike every single dragon boat paddler I know, I was feeling very depressed about not being able to paddle.Not only was I missing my teammates, but also the feel of my paddle moving through the water. Paddling is a very meditative experience. The rhythmic movement of the stroke and the need to quiet your mind and focus solely on the present. There is no other activity in the world that fills this void for me.Along wit...

IBCPC and the International Dragon Boat Federation (IDBF)

We are occasionally asked about our relationship with IDBF and what it means to be an Association of IDBF.The relationship between IBCPC and IDBF goes back to the very first meeting held in Caloundra, 2007 regarding establishing IBCPC. The minutes of that meeting note the relationship between IDBF and IBCPC.This relationship was then carried through to the establishment of IBCPC and also in the writing of the IBCPC Constitution which refers to the closeness and alignment with IDBF.In developing ...

IBCPC Strategic Plan

We have been working on the first ever strategic plan for IBCPC for the next five years. Below is the short version of the pillars that we see supporting the organisation as we move forward.To see what each of those pillars means and how that translates into work streams for the organisation as we move forward, please visit our website....

Let's do the Fandango! with Tim William Smith

Tim William Smith has been continuing to run his Friday Fandango exercise classes for breast cancer paddlers while many are still in isolation or unable to get back out on the water. Due to the global time differences his audience has mostly been in Europe, but he has also now attracted padlders from Argentina and the USA.Tim comments below:I am currently in discussions with a crew in Argentina regarding fitness sessions. How bizarre is that......:-)If you are in agreement, I would like to open ...

Letter from the President

The world remains a very strange place as COVID-19 continues to keep its hold on countries across the globe. As we in New Zealand move towards Spring in the next few days and the blossoms show their bright wee faces as we prepare to begin our paddling season, we realize that we are lucky to be able to get back out on the water while many of you will not be able to sit in a boat with a paddle in your hands for many months to come. It has been really heartening to watch so many of you continuing t...

Merchandise review

We received really great feedback for the range of merchandise that we presented in the last newsletter. The range is being finalized and will be for sale online by the end of September through Team Elite (our merchandise partner) in their online stores in Australia, the UK and Europe.Indicative pricing is:Sublimated T-Shirt - AUD $50.00Printed T's - AUD $40Embroidered Hoodie/Jacket - AUD $70Low Profile Baseball Caps - AUD $25Carry-all Sports Bag - AUD $50.00Aquatic Sports Backpack - AUD $60.00S...

Update from the amaBelles, Cape Town, South Africa

On Day 113 of our rather strict lockdown in South Africa, a small group of dragon boaters from the Cape Town teams, including the amaBele Belles, went down to the Waterfront armed with scrapers, buckets and brooms, to rescue our boats. We had been worrying for over 4 months about what the bottom of the boats would look like, as they are moored in seawater. The first month of lockdown (April) was “hard lockdown” but by May people living within 5km of the Waterfront could go and bail rainwater...

Updates from Brazil

REMAMA DRAGAO ROSAText written with the help of the journalist and supporter (and rower) Ivanir FerreiraAt the end of February, Brazil had the first official case of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19).The experience of other countries that had already faced the peak of the pandemic indicated that as long as there was no known medicine or vaccine to help fight the disease, the best way to minimize its impact would be social isolation to reduce the risk of contagion and transmission of the virus....

# Stay home- how BCS teams cope with the COVID emergency in Europe

By Cecilia Picchi – Florence Dragon Lady Lilt – IBCPC European RepIn the first days of 2020, all over the world newscasts began announcing that a virus called covid-19 or coronavirus was spreading in a Chinese city, that it was causing many deaths, and that the city was taking measures of containment. From Europe this news appeared distant and similar to those of other past viruses. On a bad day in February, the newscasts announced that the virus was detected in patients close to us in Italy...

CANOHÁ DRAGON TEAM CURITIBA, BRAZIL

By Mária de Fátima Fernandes Vara, Karina Kulig, Deborah VonsIt all started when Fátima Fernandes was introduced to Deborah Vons. Fatima, Physiotherapist and Physical Educator, was working in the international area of canoeing, and already knew about breast cancer dragon boating and wanted to work with women who had undergone breast cancer treatment.On the other hand, Deborah, a survivor of two breast cancers, was already practicing canoeing and also knew of BCS paddling. The impact of canoei...

IBCPC festivals

It is only two years from now until New Zealand 2022 and if like many of us when you attend one of these IBCPC festivals you think, wow, I could host that in my country. This is the time to start thinking about what that might look like for you.In 2022 we will hold a meeting for those interested in holding the IBCPC festival. This meeting will outline the bid criteria as well as discuss the considerations that need to be taken into account. It is a very exciting event to be part of so please mak...

Join the global Virtual paddle with Dragon Heart Vermont (DHVT)

Dragonheart Vermont (USA) is hosting a FREE worldwide BCS dragon boat celebration.Below is an email from DHVT:Dragonheart Vermont (DHVT) is a dynamic dragon boat organization located in Burlington VT. We started as one breast cancer team in 2005 and have grown to over 200 members with BCS and supporters paddling for fun and competition. Every year the BCS members host an annual event, "Sisters at Heart" and invite BCS teams from nearby for a weekend of joy, celebration and dragon boating. This y...

Letter from the President

As I sit and write this update it is a beautiful sunny day in Christchurch, New Zealand as we are in the very last day of autumn, with the first day of winter upon us. It is so lovely to see the blue blue sky and to be able to enjoy this before it gets much cooler.Well, what an incredible time it has been for so many of us as we learn to live in this new world that has been brought about by COVID-19. Some countries like my own have excelled in managing this pandemic and we now have zero active c...

Paddling “virtually” to celebrate 10 years of Plurabelle Paddlers

Article written by: Dara Duffy, Susan Rowe and Fiona Slevin, Dublin, IrelandWhen Fiona Tiernan’s breast cancer recurred in 2009 she ‘decided to put together a dragon boat racing team for women who are recovering from breast cancer’. Fiona didn’t have a paddle, a crew, a boat or any money, but she had vision, courage, tenacity and incredible powers of persuasion.On Saturday the 17th of April 2010, the Plurabelle Paddlers held our first open day meeting. Six months later the dragon boat te...

Pan American Dragon Boat Federation (PADBF) hosts the Pan American Club Crew Championships (PACCC)

The PADBF PACCC are open to member countries of the PADBF, these countries are: USA, Canada, Puerto Rico, Panama and Trinidad and Tobago.In addition to these countries the organizers will extend a special membership to IBCPC member country teams from Argentina, Brazil, Chile and Colombia. We would like to remind teams that this is not a participatory event, but rather a competitive competition and the usual requirements that teams are very competent, BCS from front to back (including helm/steer)...

Steering Committee updates: Global representation & Merchandise

The board recently undertook the first IBCPC strategic planning session. We managed to cover a great deal of ground to form the basis of our next five years. We look forward to sharing this with you when it is finished. It will also be placed on the IBCPC website.One of the outcomes of our strategic planning session we looked at how we could engage with our teams more directly and in particular through our national representatives.We have split the world into regions based on where our current m...

Thank you Abu Dhabi Jets

We were stunned to receive this email from our member team the Abu Dhabi Jets. Once we had picked up our dropped jaws off the floor, all we could manage to say was a really big WOW and a huge THANK YOU. This is particularly generous as usually teams are asking us how they can fundraise, we all know it’s the one thing that brings us together but can also drive us apart as it seems to be never ending. So to receive this gift is doubly generous.Hello my name is Dawn Hatzadony and I am one of the ...