Grandragons' History

Ron MacDonald

General

The seeds to form the Grandragon Dragon Boat team began in 1997 from a collection of
participants in a Seniors fitness class at the False Creek Community Center.
Betty MacDonald was always talking to her friends at the FCCC about her husband and
daughter being involved in Dragon Boat racing. One day a group of seniors were in the Gym
at the FCCC playing Bingo. A young paddler, Patrick Couling, passing by gave them a bad time and said, you should be outside in the rain paddling like me instead of being inside playing Bingo. One of the Bingo players mentioned this incident to Betty MacDonald.
Betty and Mary White the Seniors rep., at FCCC partly as a joke went to the officials of the FCCC and asked them if they would run a Dragon Boat Class. They agreed to try it with the co-operation of the False Creek Racing Canoe Club, to utilize their Dragon Boat and for them to supply a coach. The Seniors Dragon Boat program through FCCC was thus started and is still running today.

The First Year 1997

The first coach for the team supplied by the FCRCC was a flat water paddler named Derry.
Ron MacDonald volunteered to help them out by steering the Dragon Boat. The classes at first were small and Betty trying to keep the program going tried to recruit everybody she knew.
Some of the people recruited by Betty at that time from the North Shore have since branched off and have formed their own seniors team. The "Eh" Team.

The names of the members of that first FCCC Dragon Boat team are as follows:

( the above list is alphabetical and represents the participants in the first
Seniors Dragon Boat classes held in July and September of the year 1997).

The physical activity at the early practices by to-days standards was very limited. The practice consisted at the beginning of paddling with lots of stops from the dock at Alder Bay to half the distance to the Cambie Bridge and back. At the last practice the participants were able to paddle from Alder Bay to the Cambie Bridge and back without stopping. The 1997 dragon Boat practices ran from July 8th., to August 7th., and from September 16th., to October 16th.

The Second Year 1998

The FCCC ran the program again in 1998 with Melanie Whittal from FCRCC as the coach. Ron MacDonald again helped by steering the Dragon Boat. The program at this time was started earlier in the year. The members of the group, after a couple practices, decided to have a meeting to take care of business for their team. The meeting took place outside the Old Boat Shed. A story here about the Old Boat Shed. It had very steep and rickety stairs leading up to a loft area, where the paddles and lifejackets were stored. The FCCC would not allow the senior paddlers to go up the stairs. The stairs were deemed to be not safe for the seniors. Ron MacDonald was a member of the FCRCC so he could go up the stairs. Which he did to carry down sufficient paddles and lifejackets for the paddlers. It was decided at the meeting that; Betty MacDonald should be the first Team Captain, they needed a name, and as well as a name the team needed a Tee-shirt. Various names were proposed by different individuals. Peggy Cameron finally came up with the perfect name ,"Grandragons". Everyone agreed with this name, because it suited our group perfectly. We were all grandparents. Peggy's grandson Amar Allen with Peggy's coercion, did the design for our first Tee-shirt. Our first sponsor was, The Rogers Group. They sponsored us for three years. It was decided as a goal by the team and with the encouragement of Melanie the coach to make an appearance at the Air Canada Dragon Boat festival in June. The team trained one day a week in preparation for their appearance in one race at the festival. The festival had agreed to let us do one race for a nominal fee of $200.00. The goal then of the team at that time was to appear in the festival and paddle the whole 650 yards of the race course.
The festival was very excited about having us do our demonstration race. We were actually one of the first Specialty Teams to race at the festival. The festival asked us to be a part of the opening ceremony for that year. We lined up on one side of the stage and an American team was on the other. When the opening ceremony was over, the American team which was from San Francisco invited us to come to their Dragon Boat festival in Foster City in the fall.
The time for the Big Race finally arrived. We had twenty two people in the FCCC class and neither Melanie nor Betty wanted to cut anyone from the team. Melanie went to the Officials of the festival and asked them if we could use all our twenty two paddlers in the race. They agreed, so not only were we the first Specialty Team, we were also the first and probably only team to paddle with more than twenty paddlers. Much to our horror we were assigned a Teak Dragon Boat for our race. We had trained in the much more stable six sixteen Dragon Boat. As a result of this, one of our paddlers not being used to the instability of the Teak Dragon Boat, never paddled during the whole race he/she just hung on for dear life. By coincidence Betty and Ron MacDonald's daughter was paddling in the same race with the Air Canada team. During the race the announcer was making a big issue of our being in this Community Cup race. At the end of the race the official in the following boat, using his laud hailer, said, " You guys did great! You were all paddling together but, you will have to paddle much faster"! Our time was 4min. 20 sec.
The reception after the race by the crowd with all the; sons, daughters, grandchildren, relatives and friends waiting for us was like the arrival of the Beatles. It was an euphoric event, as only a first occurrence can be.
Melanie Whittal left the team after the big race. She was going to the Worlds outrigger competition in Tahiti. Ron MacDonald took over the coaching duties to prepare the Grandragons for their trip to Foster City, which is just below San Francisco on the bay side. The FCCC at that time, would not let Ron MacDonald coach the team. Today the current FCCC Dragon Boat class is being coached by him. Ron was known at the FCRCC so he asked them if they would allow him to coach the team, and if so would they also supply a Dragon Boat for the Grandragons to train in. The FCRCC, Nick at the time was manager, agreed to allow Ron To coach the team and for the rental of a Dragon Boat for $25.00 per person for the period from July 1st., until the end of the season in November. That was the beginning of the association of the Grandragons with the FCRCC.
The Grandragons were very successful, in many ways, at the festival in Foster City. To begin with Lesley MacDonald Betty's daughter worked for Air Canada and arranged for our flight to San Francisco and got it at a good rate. James Chen who was the race organizer was waiting for us at the arrival gate of the San Francisco Airport. He had transportation organized to take us to our hotel the Foster City Crowne Plaza, which was located walking distance from the race course. He stayed around until we were all booked in, then he walked us over to the race course so that we could have a practice session. The ladies from the Grandragons lead by Shirley King had a skit prepared and they preformed this at the Hotel on the Friday night. The next morning James Chen introduced us to our host team, the "We Be Dragons". They treated us like royalty all weekend. Feeding us at the race site, and taking us out to dinner on the Saturday night. On our best race at Foster City, over the same distance as the Vancouver festival, we dropped one minute from our race time. We beat the Beijing University Boilermakers, ( from Beijing China ), and also the San Francisco Fire Dragons, ( a men's team from the bay area ). Betty MacDonald was given an honorary Gold Medal by the Officials At the Closing Ceremonies for bring the first Canadian Seniors Dragon Boat team to their festival in Foster City.
We had a team meeting on our return to Vancouver. The group was equally divided on whether we should continue on with the FCRCC or return to the FCCC. If we continued on with FCRCC it would mean we would be looking for more competitive experiences. After a very close vote it was decided to continue on with the FCRCC, and as well to support the FCCC to ensure that the Dragon Boat classes there continued. Ron MacDonald was to continue on as the coach.

The Third Year 1999

Shirley King sent many e-mails to the Vancouver festival to ask if they would have a Seniors Cup at the festival races in June 1999. She did not get an answer, so Ron MacDonald phoned Greg Lam and asked him to ask his colleagues if they would allow a Seniors race in June. Gregs answer, some time later, was yes, if you get more participating teams. The practices for the 1999 season started in the beginning of February. In late February Ron MacDonald left on a vacation and arranged with Bob Brinson to fill in as coach in his absence.
Milton Wongs niece Gwen Wong, who was the Director for Seniors at the Dogwood Community Center in Coquitlam, had been phoning Betty regarding their starting up a Senior Dragon Boat class there. Gwen arranged for Kate Zubick from the FCRCC's Women's Team to come out to Coquitlam and give a talk and show a video on Dragon Boat Racing. The talk and video got the Seniors at Coquitlam all steamed up, and in early April they came down to False Creek to go out on a practice with the Grandragons. That was the beginning of the, "Dogwood Nothin DB Team".
The Grandragons trained hard for the Seniors Cup race to be held at the Air Canada Dragon Boat festival in Vancouver on June 20th., 1999. The participants in the race and their finish and race times are as follows:
Dogwood Nothin DB Team No. 2 2: 43: 13.
FCRCC Grandragons 2: 45: 10.
Silver Strokes (UBC Seniors Team) 3: 12: 07.
Dogwood Nothin DB Team No. 1 3: 14: 05
The Dogwood Nothin DB Team No.2 were in the first ever Official Seniors Race in Canada, and also were the first winners of the Air Canada Vancouver Festival Seniors Cup.
The author of the above document is:
Ron MacDonald and it was written on February 15th., 2004.

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