Lisa's Birthday Party

Saturday, August 7 @ 7:00 PM

Carolyn Freeman's house

Black-tie optional

Check your e-mail for more details

Paddlefish: we paddle hard; we rest hard. 

Learn To Paddle/New Rec Season

Tomorrow night (Thursday) is the planning meeting for the August 7th TRRA Learn to Paddle Day. Please come if you can.

The new rec season begins August 2nd: spread the word to any friends who are interested in dragonboating!

A little more info on both, below, from Ben's earlier email:

Learn to Paddle – Saturday August 7
Sparked by the success of learn to row we anticipate a very active turn out of folks who want to get in kayaks and dragon boats. As this is a first time event and we know all you paddlers have some good ideas on how to get people and what to do with them we will be holding a planning meeting next Thursday, July 22nd at 6:30 at Millvale. We are looking for folks to help recruit volunteers, create flyers, distribute flyers and help with follow up. Woody Duntstan, TRRA’s Director of Marketing, will be at the meeting with Ben Ledewitz. Please RSVP benledewitz@threeriversrowing.org if you would like to attend this meeting.
 
Summer Programs 2nd Season
The next season for the Rowing, Dragon Boating & Kayak League run from August 2nd to October 8th. Many of our summer coaches are returning to college in the middle of the season and we are currently looking for new coaches to fill these positions. If you are currently coaching one of these programs and will not be able to continue for the full 2nd season or if you would like to apply to coach in one of these programs please contact Ben – benledewitz@threeriversrowing.org 

Festivities

Thanks to everyone for helping to make Saturday's event such a success! If your buddy needs a little extra incentive to join us, let him or her know that buddies who joins the team this month get a DC Dragonboat Festival hat! ;-)

We'll have burgers and beer after practice tomorrow (Monday).

And Lisa's birthday party will be Saturday, August 7th!

Philadelphia Festival

Update: See Chuck's 7/19 comment on this post. The Philly race is full; we are on the waiting list.

Captain Chuck has completed the registration form for our entry in the Philadelphia Dragonboat Festival (October 2nd), and Treasurer Carolyn is sending in the deposit that reserves our spot in the race. The total registration cost is $1000 ($50 each). Half of that ($25) is due now to Carolyn.

Laurie will take care of organizing the hotel arrangements. (Thanks, Laurie!) Please start thinking now about whether you'll want a room for one night or two. The festival is on Saturday from 8 AM till 5:30 PM.

We'll need a full boat, and it would be great to have 21 or 22 paddlers sign up (plus the drummer and steersperson) so that we won't be short of paddlers if anyone gets sick that weekend. At this point, we can expect to paddle in three races that day.

Something to think about: they have a limited number of 10x10 tents that they'll rent to participating teams for $250. Are interested in this? It would be a place to meet and store gear and shelter us from whatever weather there may be.

For the earlier blog post on this race (with a link to the festival website itself), please see paddlesup.blogspot.com/2004/05/philadelphia-dragon-boat-festival.html .

Buddies & Barbecue, Etc.

Saturday (July 17) will be "buddies and barbecue" day. Please invite a friend to try dragonboating with us that morning and to join us for a barbecue picnic afterwards.

It would be good to have a general headcount, so let me know if you're bringing someone to practice that day. And please let Kathi know what you could bring for the picnic. We've got the basics (Boca burgers, beer, and bean dip) covered so far (cookies, too!).

Lisa's birthday is coming up at the end of the month, and Carolyn will host a Paddlefish Birthday Party for her. Details are forthcoming, but the party will probably be held the first full weekend in August (August 6/7/8) and will involve strawberry daiquiris.

Speaking of Lisa: are you ready for more Giant Eagle cards? Lisa will bring them to practice this week.

"The other boat was this close....." 

Regatta Races

Great job on the races yesterday! Paddle cheers for Verna and Brian for the strong drumming and steering, and kudos to everyone on the boat for the non-stop/all-out paddling -- fantastic!! Thanks for leading us, Ben.

For those who weren't able to be there: both races were close. We lost the first (the so-called 500m) and won the second (the world's longest 200m).

No practice tonight (Monday). See you all on Wednesday!