Submitted by: Dubravka (Buba) Karlovic-Babic
President DBKZ and IBCPC Croatia Rep
Update/news since our last newsletter report in September 2022:
Dear IBCPC members and teams! Croatian Dragonboat Klub Zadar is thriving and has so much to tell you! So many wonderful things have happened over the past year, so I’ll try to be very specific:
October 2022
We participated in a dragon boat cup in the town of Prelog (Croatia) where we presented the DB sport especially as a pink team. We were interviewed by local media (TV and online newspapers). Promotion of health, and DB for BCS was our focus! We had an amazing response and reception from all present!
FOTO/VIDEO U nedjelju na preloškoj Marini navijajte za Dragonboat surviverice! | Vijesti iz Međimurja | medjimurski.hr
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November 2022 – January 2023
Focus on PR and recruitment of new members resulted in 10 new members (survivors and supporters). We organized cleaning of our boat and equipment and were featured in local (Zadar) TV. Also had a professional photo shoot (see below)!
February 2023
Celebrated our FIRST ANNIVERSARY on Feb 1st! It was a party indeed!
In The Spring
Got new team/race shirts; got 10 new PFDs; Attended two events: 1st International Zagreb dragon boat cup in April 2023 and Dragon boat races on the island of Rab in May.
We continued with intensified efforts to fundraise donations and access funds from various institutional sources (government and corporate). By the summer of 2023 we received from individual donors mostly from Zadar and abroad, with sufficient funds to purchase two small dragon boats, and 12 mostly carbon paddles! That was an amazing success considering we are just a newbie team, a newbie club and a newbie sport in the entire country! New boats arrived in August and September 2023!
September 2023
We participated in an Outdoor Zadar event and held a workshop in paddling in a dragon boat for the participants and audience which included athletes in other sports (rock climbers, SUP and kayak paddlers, runners) and media people.
October 2023
We participated in the 2nd International Dragon Boat Cup of the City of Zagreb and got our first ever gold medal. There was a lot of media coverage, here is one example.
The entire year we had continuous media coverage for various activities and events we either organized or participated in. Partnership with many non-profit groups and other organizations resulted in us hosting paddling events in our boat for 10 of these groups in order to promote DB sport and BCS health!
We participated in several events dedicated to fight against cancer and other events organized by the city of Zadar. Our message was strong and our appearance visually impressive.
What’s NEXT
End of October
We will participate in the 2nd dragon boat cup in the town of Prelog; Focussing on recruitment of new members - this time not only BCS and women 50+ but we also want to create new teams: for mixed, men and the younger population. The campaign has started but there is lots to do!
The biggest goal is to participate in one of the European festivals/competitions where there are more teams in our category (BCS and women senior). Wish us luck in fundraising to be able to achieve this goal.
Our second biggest goal is to invite and host a couple of DB (BCS and survivor/supporter) teams to come to Croatia and paddle with us either in our city of Zadar or at the international DB Cup in Zagreb sometime in April next year. We will keep you posted, but we’d love to hear from you and find out if there is a chance of any of your teams visiting Croatia!?
Paddles up!
