Five races are always an option for teams racing at Lively Dragon Events.

Everyone chooses their qualifying races…qualifying races can be either 500m or 250m You get three qualifying races… these are for medals… Top team in every division gets medals--- Top three teams in 500m A Division gets medals.

Then every team gets a bonus race. The bonus race is the opposite of the qualifying race. (if you choose 500m for your qualifying race then your bonus race is 250m race…) This race is for fun.

We encourage all teams to race in the 2000m race. This race is for pride. If your team has never raced a 2000m race… you have to give it a try! It is a very exciting race..to watch and to paddle in!

Lively Dragon has successfully followed this race format for the past three years with up to 27 teams participating in the event.

At Christie Lake on Sept 24…all teams will have the option of racing in our flag-fetching race. This race is a real slalom race! It is particularly fun for the steersperson and drummer. There are special bouys set up in the water that have flags on a pole. Each team (one team on the course at a time) has to race to collect all four flags. If your drummer misses a flag you need to back it down or turn around and go back to get it. You must have all four flags (collected in order) before you can cross the finish line.

And all this for only $600…this includes your $100 donation for the charity! To register go to…
http://www.dragon-boats.com/registration.htm

but half the time the event is so delayed nobody wants to do it. Your two attempts of this at kelso bombed pitifully, Waterloo was a wash, even with the weather you still got slammed.

24 teams in a place like Hamilton. Should be 124 teams. If other major cities can do it, why not you guys?

How come there's so much hate for Lively and Jackie? Is there some bad blood here? Seems like people come down harder for their mistakes than they would for any other festival.

My team placed 4th in the A final and got nothing, 3rd place B final got medals.

"My team placed 4th in the A final and got nothing, 3rd place B final got medals."

Guy, that happens ALL The time. You place 4th in the A Championship final and get squat while the "winner" of the C Division Consolation gets medals. Hey, that's just the nature of the sport.

Besides, only GSB in the top final really counts. Every other medal is just a "Participant" ribbon, like in Grade 4 Track and Field day.

Lively Dragon was the one who brought dragonboating to Milton. We did and do the Santa Clause parade. We started the ball rolling. We have had three Dragon Boat Events at Kelso Conservation area in Milton. All three events were successful. At the second annual event the park caused a terrible delay (due to their ATM Machine) and the whole race was started two hours late. Even our volunteers were not able to get through the gates…. HOWEVER…once we got started the event ran like clockwork.
In 2003 we had teams racing in the 2000m race.
In 2004 there were teams racing in the 2000m race.
In 2005 there was a torrential downpour and still we had teams race in the 2000m… AND everyone scheduled to race in the bonus races…raced---despite the weather! Every thing ended right on schedule. Pity you were not there it was a great day!

This year in Hamilton we, the organizers and three ambitious team captains, pulled together a spur of the moment 2000m race. Lively Dragon has hosted the dragon boat races in Hamilton for two years… while another group ran it for 9 years… While we agree that Hamilton is a great place for a race and the event has tons of room to grow… the other group didn’t get more than 30 teams to register in nine years! So again, yes… we know that this event should be a lot bigger and we are doing what we can to make that happen.
Hamilton 2004 event was exactly on time…Infact we were about 20 minutes ahead of schedule then in 2005 everyone again was genuinely happy. Too bad you missed it! It was a perfect day!
In case you have not heard… watch for next year… rib cook off… beer festival… dragon boat races.. fishing derby… I think that is a great start to the second annual Lively Dragon Waterfest!!

As for the last posters comments…. Why do we people come down on Lively Dragon so hard? I have no idea. But I really am interested in an answer. Of course the answer would mean more to me if it came from a real person with a real name and a real email address.

No real name or email. Look at the words used:

"Lively Dragon was the one who brought dragonboating to Milton.
We did and do the Santa Clause parade.
We started the ball rolling.
We have had three Dragon Boat Events at Kelso Conservation area in Milton. All three events were successful. "

WE ARE THE GREATEST!!! WE RULE! EVERYTHING WE TOUCH TURNS TO GOLD!!!
Something did go wrong. However, it was all park's fault.

"At the second annual event the park caused a terrible delay (due to their ATM Machine) and the whole race was started two hours late. Even our volunteers were not able to get through the gates…. HOWEVER…once we got started the event ran like clockwork.
In 2003 we had teams racing in the 2000m race.
In 2004 there were teams racing in the 2000m race.
In 2005 there was a torrential downpour and still we had teams race in the 2000m… AND everyone scheduled to race in the bonus races…raced---despite the weather! Every thing ended right on schedule. Pity you were not there it was a great day! "

Again, WE ARE THE GREATEST!!!

"This year in Hamilton we, the organizers and three ambitious team captains, pulled together a spur of the moment 2000m race. Lively Dragon has hosted the dragon boat races in Hamilton for two years… while another group ran it for 9 years… While we agree that Hamilton is a great place for a race and the event has tons of room to grow… the other group didn’t get more than 30 teams to register in nine years! So again, yes… we know that this event should be a lot bigger and we are doing what we can to make that happen. "

See how the other group sucked for nine years and already WE ARE THE GREATEST.


" Hamilton 2004 event was exactly on time…Infact we were about 20 minutes ahead of schedule then in 2005 everyone again was genuinely happy. Too bad you missed it! It was a perfect day!
In case you have not heard… watch for next year… rib cook off… beer festival… dragon boat races.. fishing derby… I think that is a great start to the second annual Lively Dragon Waterfest!! "

Again, WE ARE THE GREATEST AND ONLY GOING TO GET GREATER!!!!


"As for the last posters comments…. Why do we people come down on Lively Dragon so hard? I have no idea. But I really am interested in an answer. Of course the answer would mean more to me if it came from a real person with a real name and a real email address. ?"

WE ARE THE GREATEST AND YOU KEEP PUTTING US DOWN!

No Really, 'Not Clued In' has a good point. Why so hard on them? I personally have never raced in a lively dragon event and probably won't. It doesn't seem like the race would be competitive enough for what I would want but I think Jackie and her gang have a right to run a business without the constant negative comments, Probably from people who have never been to one of their events.

It seems everyone is also all over FMG but with tons of examples why. If there are reasons to give Lively a hard time then let's hear them, if not, then maybe everyone should leave them alone.

Those are your words not mine. I only stated facts. Someone said that our events always run late and no one sticks around to do the bonus races or the 2000m races. So what was I to do…leave that false statement as the truth? Of course not. I simply stated the true facts.

Also, if you took that Hamilton paragraph as a put down to the organizers of the dragonboat races that have happened in Hamilton in previous years then you took it wrong. What I said was they struggled for nine years to try to build the event…(with no put downs) and here someone is bad mouthing Lively Dragon because we have not built it up to a 124 team event in the last two years that we have hosted it.
If anyone has any suggestions as to how we can build this event….we are all ears!

It is a shame that teams have not tried our events. We hear all the time that there is not enough competition out to race but how can we get the competition out there if you don’t come? For the last three years in Milton we had a great mix of teams racing. Community teams, average teams and some pretty competitive teams.

All we suggest to teams out there…. Try ONE Lively Dragon event… just once… and hopefully that would mean that you will be back….and if you are not… that is ok… each paddler will only be out $23 per paddler.

If you could get more of the community involved. Local art dealers, performers, etc .. turn it into a "festival" . not just a regatta .. bring out the "festive" nature of people. Perhaps that would help a long way to establishing your Lively Dragon races.

Your races are definitely not as competititive as the bigger ones, so it attracts more local teams so having a more "fun" atmosphere than focusing on strictly racing would be nice.

Jackie, I was just trying to help people figure out why you guys get bashed. I don't care either way, I just paddle.

Jackie you should just let the quality of your events do the talking. You get bashed because you do an annoying sell job on your festivals.

Holy Smokes. Every thread is vicious nowadays! Stop banging your paddles on your heads. I'm embarrassed to call myself a dragonboat paddler sometimes. Maybe I'll try rowing next year!

I am from Jetstart and we have participated in several Lively Dragon boat festivals in the past 3 years(Milton and Hamilton).I really don't understand all the complaints about this organization.

Jetstart races in 10 to 12 events every year all over North America and even China and I do not know of any other organization that has race fees of only $500 for 3 races and 2 bonuses races.

Ok there have been some issues at times but what event is ever perfect such as MIDBF this year (remember those SRS boats) or Vancouver where the 2000 metre race had to be restarted because the course was unclear to the teams and officials. Most of the large events are run by organizations that have up to 10 years of experience and they still manage to mess their event up and make a lot of paddlers unhappy. I think there is too much bickering about Lively and that their efforts to correct past problems have been admirable. If you prefer to pay 800$/1500$ for events go ahead but OMG $500 for up to 5 races in a day (Hamilton this year) is a sweet deal. Open your eyes and if you like racing more then just complaining come out to one of their events. Happy Paddling!

Would be sooo sweet if ALL dragonboat festivals in North America had a $500 registration fee LIMIT. Then MORE teams (both competitive and recreational) would definitely show up to MORE festivals since it will be more affordable for everyone. Then more festivals would have similar credibility with regards to festival/team rankings. Then dragon boat teams can be ranked accordingly and accurately.

Right, if entry fees were all $500, then there would not be any racing unless more teams provided volunteers to help work the docks, pickup the garbage, distribute the brochures, collect all the equipment, etc. etc. Be real!

I can't buy this argument. A great festival that folded this year was Owen Sound and it was priced at no more than $600 for several years.

Few out of town teams gave it consideration. They had a great site, good boats, nice people and a pretty good day of entertainment.

the Silvermasters supported it every year of it's existance (about 6 or 7) and every year we had fun. Money is not the issue. It's whether teams want to actually hit the highways and support these smaller events.

Get out of the big city and give some of the smaller events your support for at least one event. I guarantee that you will have a different perspective.

I couldn't agree with you more Silvery Master. It's refreshing not to have these huge machines like TCBA take all your money and leave you with minimal racing. Small festivals are just more fun

Except FMG events, those are pure crap