At the end of the 2007 season Marie Eve wrote a team statement and discussed it with Muriel, Heather, Raymond and Tony, to state some principles and ideas for the future of the team.
The statement starts with the assumption that the team will continue as a team at VCKC for 2008 with the goal of participating in some races, and that the team would like to practice with the goals of paddling better and improving our performance.
The statement has been posted to the Loco Motion Google group page for review and discussion by the team. The Google Group is private. Invitations have been sent to the members of the team who were members through the races in August 2007.
Monday, November 12, 2007
Sunday, November 11, 2007
Communications
Over the weekend, Tony set up a Google Group for the team and a Google Calendar.
The Google Group will create a private mailing list to allow private messages about team business and social events to be sent to the whole team. It will provide a forum for publishing team documents and discussion of the team's goals and organization.
The Calendar will publish practice times, race dates, and special events. Special events will include Club events including program related events and full Club events like cleaning up the Gorge and Canada Day.
The Google Group will create a private mailing list to allow private messages about team business and social events to be sent to the whole team. It will provide a forum for publishing team documents and discussion of the team's goals and organization.
The Calendar will publish practice times, race dates, and special events. Special events will include Club events including program related events and full Club events like cleaning up the Gorge and Canada Day.
Sunday, October 14, 2007
FCRCC Paddling Clinic
The VCKC Dragon program circulated information about a clinic to our captain Marie-Eve. The Clinic is being held November 3 and 4, 2007 at the False Creek Community Center. It is being organized by FCRCC (False Creek Racing Canoe Club). Main Details at this link. More details in the Forums at Dragon Boat West under the topic of FCRCC Dragon Boat Paddling Clinic.
This looks like a good opportunity to build on our skills. The clinic itself is a good value - the larger financial questions for individuals are the trip to Vancouver and devoting a weekend to this. We hope there will be similar clinics on the Island before next summer, but we have no details.
This looks like a good opportunity to build on our skills. The clinic itself is a good value - the larger financial questions for individuals are the trip to Vancouver and devoting a weekend to this. We hope there will be similar clinics on the Island before next summer, but we have no details.
Golf & Halloween
Raymond is organizing a team golf tournament on Sunday October 21, 2007. [Updated after the fact - rained out after all].
It would be at the Juan de Fuca Recreation Centre in Colwood. It's on the Old Island Highway - it's the same location as the Bear Mountain Arena. (Google Map). The golf course is a nine hole course, and it is a good course for beginners. Some of us may have some experience but most of us are beginners. A nine hole round will probably take a couple of hours.
We will be playing at off-season rates, at $8.50 per person - which is a bargain. Club rental and pull cart rental are $6.25 and $4.00 extra. Probably people can double up on a set of clubs.
It would be at the Juan de Fuca Recreation Centre in Colwood. It's on the Old Island Highway - it's the same location as the Bear Mountain Arena. (Google Map). The golf course is a nine hole course, and it is a good course for beginners. Some of us may have some experience but most of us are beginners. A nine hole round will probably take a couple of hours.
We will be playing at off-season rates, at $8.50 per person - which is a bargain. Club rental and pull cart rental are $6.25 and $4.00 extra. Probably people can double up on a set of clubs.
Saturday, September 22, 2007
Putting the Boats up
Last Saturday, Robin, Muriel, Tony and Walter were part of a dragon boat program work party that hauled out the A boat and scraped and cleaned it. Today Marie-Eve, Nina, Jane, Claude, Art, Chark, Harold and Tony were part of much larger party that carried the A boat to the compound, pulled the B boat, turned it over (it's a heavy brute) washed it and carried it to the compound. The work was well coordinated by program leaders Mike Fox and by the club's go-to guys, Dale and Doug. Everyone walked away dirty and wet, but whole and healthy.
The boats were not in good shape - both showed signs of close encounters with rocks and other damage, which was discussed at a what amounted to an informal meeting of the VCKC Dragon boat program. Mike has some ideas about a committee involving all the teams to discuss care of the boats, training the steer-persons for all boats and promoting and training some coaches.
There are some people in the program who think that in the future novice paddlers should practice and race as a novice team and then be recruited into the established teams. Some established teams lose members every year, but they don't want to take novices into their team.
Loco Motion isn't impressed with this idea on a retroactive basis, and we saw some doubts about whether the bonding of a new team could be prevented or legislated. Our experience was that we fell into the routine of practicing together and discovered our strengths as part of a team.
Some team members had been paddling OC-6 outriggers before joining Loco Motion - Jane, Fiona, Muriel. As the dragon boat season wound up, Raymond, Tony and Marie-Eve seem to have found places on the spare list for some of the Club's OC-6 rosters, and many are becoming more active in the canoe and kayak programs, and positive about taking an active role in the Club's volunteer programs and club governance.
The boats were not in good shape - both showed signs of close encounters with rocks and other damage, which was discussed at a what amounted to an informal meeting of the VCKC Dragon boat program. Mike has some ideas about a committee involving all the teams to discuss care of the boats, training the steer-persons for all boats and promoting and training some coaches.
There are some people in the program who think that in the future novice paddlers should practice and race as a novice team and then be recruited into the established teams. Some established teams lose members every year, but they don't want to take novices into their team.
Loco Motion isn't impressed with this idea on a retroactive basis, and we saw some doubts about whether the bonding of a new team could be prevented or legislated. Our experience was that we fell into the routine of practicing together and discovered our strengths as part of a team.
Some team members had been paddling OC-6 outriggers before joining Loco Motion - Jane, Fiona, Muriel. As the dragon boat season wound up, Raymond, Tony and Marie-Eve seem to have found places on the spare list for some of the Club's OC-6 rosters, and many are becoming more active in the canoe and kayak programs, and positive about taking an active role in the Club's volunteer programs and club governance.
Sunday, September 16, 2007
Windup
Our social director Raymond was the host for our windup Saturday evening (yesterday). He has a large yard, and he had a net for badminton and volleyball, and a fire pit. We had good weather, and were able to eat, socialize and play outside. Most of the team were able to make it, and our coaches and their helpers and spouses. Some of us are talented at other sports, and everyone was enthusiastic.
Everyone on the team was able to make something interesting and tasty - we had a variety of schools of cuisine represented.
We have to give the accolades to Walter for his Tiramisu. Walter comes to the kitchen with an advantage though - he used to be a professional chef.
We have some consensus that we should stay together, make sure we support the Club and paddle as a team next year. This is amazing. We started as strangers, and our personal styles and interests are diverse - but over a couple of weeks we got to know each other and we see the potential in this team and in each other to set new goals, and to paddle together next year.
Everyone on the team was able to make something interesting and tasty - we had a variety of schools of cuisine represented.
We have to give the accolades to Walter for his Tiramisu. Walter comes to the kitchen with an advantage though - he used to be a professional chef.
We have some consensus that we should stay together, make sure we support the Club and paddle as a team next year. This is amazing. We started as strangers, and our personal styles and interests are diverse - but over a couple of weeks we got to know each other and we see the potential in this team and in each other to set new goals, and to paddle together next year.
Sunday, August 19, 2007
Victoria Harbour 2007
Team Loco Motion won silver medals in the Pearl event in the 2007 Victoria Dragon Boat Festival over this weekend (August 18& 19/07).
This was tougher than the races last week. These races were in the harbour. The water is different - the tides have more influence. The races are held up for the Coho, the other ferries, whale-watching and sightseeing boats, and yachts. It is a big festival with 90 teams, which mean 18 races of 5 boats to run the heats. With the traffic delays, it takes about 4 to 5 hours to get through a full set of 18 races. Most of the teams have been practicing and racing for a few years, and there a couple of dozen teams with serious competitive goals.
Saturday was cloudy, with sunny breaks. Sunday morning started overcast, and turned to light rain and showers, and then it became sunny for the afternoon. There was small ebb tide in the morning on Saturday, small floods for the other races. The flood tends to curl from right to left across the race course. As novices, we we seeded in lane 5 along the James Bay shore in the Saturday heats, which was a disadvantage. We finished fifth the first race. We didn't do badly, but in the excitement of the first race, there were cumulative small mistakes. We did better in the second race, pulling out a third place finish, which got us enough points to get into the Pearl event, the best 10 of the bottom 30 teams. We were happy with our silver medal, especially since our times in the Pearl semifinal and final were competitive with times in the Bronze events above us.
Our team worked hard, competed with enthusiasm, overcame adversity, lifted its spirits, supported our friends and mentors in the Club, and applauded our competitors.
Loco Motion had some extroverts and natural clowns, who took the Loco name as a mission statement to have fun and create some entertainment. We had funny hats, songs, pranks:
Loco Motion found wonderful support within VCKC. The Club found volunteer coaches and helped us find some experienced dragon and outrigger paddlers to build our team, including Harold. Our coaches Stephen and Judi paddle with the Vasuki Dragons. The Dragons throw money into a pot to shop for buns, bagels, veggies, fruit and snacks, so that the whole team is properly fed, at a ridiculously low cost, through the festival. They brought us in on these arrangements and took us under their wing.
This was tougher than the races last week. These races were in the harbour. The water is different - the tides have more influence. The races are held up for the Coho, the other ferries, whale-watching and sightseeing boats, and yachts. It is a big festival with 90 teams, which mean 18 races of 5 boats to run the heats. With the traffic delays, it takes about 4 to 5 hours to get through a full set of 18 races. Most of the teams have been practicing and racing for a few years, and there a couple of dozen teams with serious competitive goals.
Saturday was cloudy, with sunny breaks. Sunday morning started overcast, and turned to light rain and showers, and then it became sunny for the afternoon. There was small ebb tide in the morning on Saturday, small floods for the other races. The flood tends to curl from right to left across the race course. As novices, we we seeded in lane 5 along the James Bay shore in the Saturday heats, which was a disadvantage. We finished fifth the first race. We didn't do badly, but in the excitement of the first race, there were cumulative small mistakes. We did better in the second race, pulling out a third place finish, which got us enough points to get into the Pearl event, the best 10 of the bottom 30 teams. We were happy with our silver medal, especially since our times in the Pearl semifinal and final were competitive with times in the Bronze events above us.
Our team worked hard, competed with enthusiasm, overcame adversity, lifted its spirits, supported our friends and mentors in the Club, and applauded our competitors.
Loco Motion had some extroverts and natural clowns, who took the Loco name as a mission statement to have fun and create some entertainment. We had funny hats, songs, pranks:
Loco Motion found wonderful support within VCKC. The Club found volunteer coaches and helped us find some experienced dragon and outrigger paddlers to build our team, including Harold. Our coaches Stephen and Judi paddle with the Vasuki Dragons. The Dragons throw money into a pot to shop for buns, bagels, veggies, fruit and snacks, so that the whole team is properly fed, at a ridiculously low cost, through the festival. They brought us in on these arrangements and took us under their wing.
Saturday, August 11, 2007
Gorge Races August 11/07
After about two months of practice, VCKC Loco Motion made its debut in the Vancouver Island Island Championships, at the Gorge Rowing and Paddling Center.
We sang our team song and put out some team spirit into it.
In the first heat, we were put in against Blu by U, a competitive team that finished 8th overall on the day, came in at 2:14. We were second at 2:33. This got us into the Green event. Our performances improved through the next two races partly through the influence of wind and tide, to 2:17, but the competitive teams ran between 2:01 and 2:05 in their finals. We had a Ribbon for second place in the B Final, which was reasonable for our effort as Novice Team.
We sang our team song and put out some team spirit into it.
In the first heat, we were put in against Blu by U, a competitive team that finished 8th overall on the day, came in at 2:14. We were second at 2:33. This got us into the Green event. Our performances improved through the next two races partly through the influence of wind and tide, to 2:17, but the competitive teams ran between 2:01 and 2:05 in their finals. We had a Ribbon for second place in the B Final, which was reasonable for our effort as Novice Team.
Tuesday, July 17, 2007
Important practice Thursday!!!
This will be a very special practice, Thanks to our coach Stephen, we will be videoed to be able to work on our individual performance and team performance.
Please confirm your attendance ; Marie-Eve will work out the team positions. See you there!
Please confirm your attendance ; Marie-Eve will work out the team positions. See you there!
Friday, July 6, 2007
Paddles Up!
Dragon Boaters watch out! There's a new dragon on the waters that is going to swallow you up! We're a full team of enthusiastic, motivated, and fierce paddlers who are without a doubt, a bit loco. We have a great diversity of persons of different ages, nationalities, birthplaces, occupations, and skills. - not to mention personalities! We practice two to three times a week at the Victoria Canoe and Kayak Club (www.vckc.ca) under our fearless coach Stephen who is driving us to be the best in our class. And we're going to win! Besides the great paddling, we have a committed and organized executive with Marie-Eve as our Captain, Muriel as our Back-Up Team Captain, Heather as our Treasurer, Kim as our Back-Up Treasurer, Chris as our Communications Director, and Raymond as our Social Director and Festival Director. We are going to have so much fun over the next month and a half. Paddles up!
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