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PRESIDENT'S REPORT Presented by Gail Strickland And with a flick of a hand there goes another year. I would like to thank the 2015/2016 Board for their support throughout the year. Special thanks to Chris McPherson for all her work while she was Secretary of our club. It was a sad day when I received Chris’s email to say she wouldn’t be re-joining the club this year - she will be greatly missed. Maureen French has taken over the running of the website – Thank you Maureen. I believe we have had quite a successful year as far as recruitment of new paddlers is concerned. We are looking good for numbers and although I know there are some members not re-joining our club, I think it won’t be long before we build up those numbers again. It’s a shame that we can’t seem to get more men interested in our sport. Word of mouth seems to be the best way to recruit new members – so keep promoting out sport over coffee or drinks or where ever. Successful fundraising efforts where achieved this year with the triathlon being our biggest fundraiser, Yamba Markets and Home Hardware. Thanks to everyone who helped out at these events. I would like to see the funds raised put towards a new boat as ours is getting to the stage of needing lots of maintenance. During 2016/2017 maybe we could look at this purchase more seriously. We competed in Ballina and Grafton regattas and even though no trophies were bought home everyone had a great time. Just attending these events is great fun, as the hype of competition is a real adrenaline rush. I am looking forward to great news filtering through to me with results of the Ballina regatta while I am overseas next month. I know I commented on training session attendance in my report last year but I have to mention that numbers for each session continue to be fantastic and commitment to training sessions is most impressive. It is very rarely now days that we don’t have a full or near full boat. The strength and fitness and improvement I have witnessed each training session I have coached has been very impressive. We have been lucky once again to have the assistance of Chris Moran as a sweep and coach in the absence of our own members. Chris has helped us out on many occasions and I thank him for that. We just have to convince him he no longer needs to be a member of the Tsunami DBC and join Clarence Coast! Just last week I had an email from one of our local schools requesting information about the possibility of some students doing dragon boating as part of their sport program for a term. Dot and I went to speak with the staff member who contacted us and they are very excited about this if we can get it off the ground. Chris Moran has agreed to sweep and coach the students and I have been in contact with DBNSW to organise the paper work for insurance etc. This is something that could lead to bigger and better things for our club. The school is hoping to start next week and providing everything is organised with DBNSW it should go ahead. It will be held on Thursdays from about 12 to 1.30 and we will need some experienced paddlers who are available to help out. A big thank you must go to Dot Reed who tirelessly gives so much of her time to our club in many ways. Without devoted people like her we wouldn’t have a club. Thanks Dot. I would like to thank you the members for your support and help throughout the year and I hope that my time as President of your club has been of benefit to the club. Congratulations everyone for making Clarence Coast Dragon Boat Club special and I feel privileged to be a member of it. Thanks Gail COACH'S REPORT Presented by Dot Reed The last year has been a very rewarding time for me as a coach. I have watched our club grow with new enthusiastic members who have listened to instructions and quickly learnt the basics of Dragon boat paddling, then improved with each session. Commitment is never doubted and many have become so hooked they have spent lots of money on their own carbon fibre paddles. All members have worked well together improving their paddling technique. Trying new things at times can be challenging but perseverance is paying off and teamwork continually improves. Winning medals and trophies is not the main objective from week to week, but a safe enjoyable paddling session with the satisfaction of a good workout for all is what I aim for. Training the Maclean High School students team last year for the Grafton regatta and watching them achieve their trophy was exhilarating. Many thanks must go to all members who helped with this and special mention goes to Chris Moran who has been an invaluable source of knowledge and assistance not only with Maclean students but on many occasions as coach and sweep. However, I hope this next year is going to show how much we have improved, resulting in fun, competitive racing at the local regattas with something to bring back to the trophy cabinet. Hopefully, DBNSW will hold coaches courses this year and we can have some members attend to increase the pool of knowledge and the workload can be spread around. Thank you Gail for your sessions, I know the stop watch is much more scientific than my egg timer but the loud ding is listened for. I don’t believe the crew wait for “let it run” command when the timer dings. Thanks to Jan and Lin for helping when Gail and I have been away. Thank you for your tolerance of my coaching. All comments and suggestions are appreciated but please see the coach after we are off the water. Keep up the good work everyone. Dot Reed 
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