Teams are invited to apply for the 13th Dragon Boat Festival, in September
Teams across the region are already starting to sign up to become part of the county’s most exuberant boating event, the Cambridge Dragon Boat Festival, which returns for its annual instalment on 9 September. Now in its 13th year, this river extravaganza sees teams from all around battle it out along a 200m stretch of the River Cam out in Fen Ditton.
Crews are made up of companies, organisations, clubs and groups of friends, all competing in a nail-biting river race to see who will take home the crown. You don’t need to have any experience to get involved; it’s tons of fun and it’s not all about brute strength, so the race is open to anyone – all you need is lots of enthusiasm and a good bit of team spirit!
The dragon boats, qualified helms and all racing equipment are provided, and each crew is guaranteed a minimum of three races. Best of all, it’s all in aid of a fantastic local cause: Addenbrooke’s Charitable Trust (ACT), which is the only charity dedicated to making a difference for patients at Addenbrooke’s and the Rosie hospitals. Emily Willdigg, ACT’s Events Fundraiser is looking forward to building on the success of the event last year, saying: “We hope that businesses will support our much-loved hospitals by getting a team together. With the help of many generous supporters, we can provide funds so that our local hospitals can offer the very best care day after day, year after year.”
The top fundraising crew for ACT will receive the coveted Charity trophy and a luxurious, traditional afternoon tea at the stylish Six Panoramic Bar and Restaurant in Cambridge.
One of the early entrants is Sitec Infrastructure Services from Waterbeach, which provides specialist services across the UK telecommunication and fixed line industries. Crew manager Taryn Caleno is looking forward to strengthening internal company relationships through their participation and the company has also set a target of raising £1000 in sponsorship for ACT. “We thought it would be a great opportunity for team building. We are always so busy as a company with a number of different teams working for separate clients and types of work. We find it difficult to fit traditional team building away days into our schedule so this looked a great opportunity to link in our social side with an element of team building too!”
Other early Festival entrants include Addenbrooke’s Charitable Trust, Taylor Wimpey East Anglia, TWI, Prometic Bioseparations, Inca Digital, Encore Estate Management Ltd and Ely-based Stormport Professional Services who have even entered a Gold crew.
Gold and Silver entries include a significant donation to the festival charity ACT as well as marketing benefits such as the company name and logo on the side of a dragon boat. Stormport’s crew manager, Clair Godfrey is very excited about their debut at this year’s Dragon Boat Festival, “Our team will be made up of representatives from across the company and we felt this would be a great opportunity for team building, fundraising and having fun!”
As well as all the action taking place on the river, there’s plenty to enjoy on the banks, including Chinese-themed entertainment, children’s rides, inflatable activities and plenty of food and drink for all the family on the bankside.
If you fancy getting involved, visit the Gable Events website for more information and fill out an entry form.
dragonboatfestivals.co.uk/cambridge
