Dragon Boat Race Roaring Success
32 fabulous Foundation fundraisers, £8,000 raised, 250 metre heats, 53 teams competing, and one amazing day!
The Kingston Dragon Boat Race was another amazing community event, enabling so many charities and businesses in our shared economy to partner together and raise funds to help others across the borough.
This year, Kingston Charitable Foundation entered two teams, one in the mixed class and one in the open class.
Huge thanks to the Kingston Charitable Foundation Team Captain and Event Sponsor Peter Greenwood of Greenwoods Residential, sponsors Project Marquee, Gareth Dean, Emma Greenwood, Chris Hirsch C Mgr FCMI, Nicky Hirsch, Sam Madeley, Kelly Tyler, Barnaby Kingsbury, Sam Page, Stephen Firth, Dean Page, Kelly Page, Alexandra Moss, Sarah Martin, John Foster, Danielle O'Shaughnessy, Ed Gossage, Maria Netley, Justine Belcher, Justin Pinches, Joshua Pinches, Ardit, John Hutchison, Pippa Hutchison and Luke Hutchison, Sarah Martin, Stuart Martin, Silvio Roma and Tania Perotta, Daniel Faulkner and Doro Plummer! And our wonderful volunteers joining us on the day from Barclays - Mahindika Siriwardena and Suzanne Pook and her daughter Amy.
They battled 53 other teams over a 250m course along the River Thames, to the beat of our drummers, KINGSTON CHAMBER OF COMMERCE President Julie Leach (Chartered MCIPD) and Indi from Greenwoods Residential. Whilst we didn't win, our best qualifying round on the day was a very respectable 53 seconds... shaving nine seconds off our personal best last year!
Our CEO Hicky Kingsbury not only picked up a paddle to join our mixed team but went quackers with the glue gun too, crafting some amazing duck themed caps for her team too.
If you have not donated yet, there is still time... you can support the whole team through Hicky's fundraising page: Dragon Boat Race 2023 | Localgiving
90p in every £1 donated to our oarsome fundraisers will support people in need, here in Kingston. Last year our grants helped almost 25,000 people in all sorts of different ways thanks to the generous support of our local community.
You can read more about our work in our Impact Report 2022.
This wonderful event was brilliantly organised by the Rotary Club of Kingston, thank you to Simon Leo and his amazing team of organisers.
And thank you so much to our wonderful Team Captain Peter Greenwood for all his incredible work arranging training and galvanising the troops and to our Community Lead and Grants Manager Justine Belcher for all the amazing work she did behind the scenes, and to our Community Communications Manager, Justine Aldous for all her incredible help, even live tweeting from the event, for what was an all round fabulous day on Sunday.... Roll on Dragon Boat Race 2024!!