The colemans-ctts Dragon Boat team – “The Oar Society” took to the Thames again for the Annual Kingston Rotary Dragon Boat Challenge 2007 in aid of Born to Soon, Kingston Hospital's Premature Babies Unit.  This year we managed to raise £321.77 for this special unit. 

This year’s event was supposed to take place in July, but had to be postponed due to heavy rain the previous day.   Some of the team were noticeably (and vocally) disgruntled that they were being forced to stand around in clown hats at 9:30 on a crisp Sunday morning in October.

With the assistance of a few ringers (some less willing than others) we were able to enter a full 17-strong team, and this years line-up demonstrated a noticeable improvement in paddle synchronisation compared with last year’s team.  Unfortunately we failed to make it through to the semi-finals, but we did manage to secure the trophy for the Boaters Inn Best Headgear Award for the second consecutive year!

A special acknowledgement to Richard Cottrell who managed to miss the second heat because he had wandered off to Sainsbury’s to do a bit of shopping, and Richard Drummond who favoured a spot of lunch over our third heat. 

The Oar Society 2007 (in no particular order) were - Lewis Crane (on drums), Amanda Dooley, Choy Yee Lau, Colette Steers, Hateem Ali, Jonathan Law, Lorna Valcin, Oliver Lawson, Richard Cottrell, Richard Drummond (until he got hungry), Samantha Quinn, Nigel Tarrant, Edouard Stokes, and Michael Baillie.

With thanks to our ringers - Greg Brutton, Curtis Jackson, Earl Valcin, Charlotte Steers, Mariam Ali.