DBNSW would like to offer a huge congratulations to our RECOGNITION AWARD WINNERS for 2022.

• Club of the Year – The Sloths Dragon Boat Club
•  Official of the Year – Denise Barham (Easts Dragon Boat Club)
•  Coach of the Year - Kristin Chick (Mako Paddle Club)
•  Administrator of the Year - Rodney Moore (Different Strokes Dragon Boat Club)
• Young Athlete of the Year - Daniel O’Neil (Sydney Zodiacs)

Administrator of the year Rodney Moore - Rodney has been part of the dragon boating community and a member of Different Strokes Dragon Boat Club for the last 8 years. He has since the beginning been involved in the club's administration and leadership, has facilitate many services for the smooth running of the club and promotion of the sport and the club in the LGTBI and general community.

Rodney is an experienced level 5 sweep and has been a representative of the DBNSW NSW state team on multiple occasions. He has played an active role as part of the DBNSW Sweeps Committee and is also a valued member and contributor of the DBNSW Advisory Committee.

Congratulation Rodney the DBNSW Administrator of the year.

Club of the year The Sloths Dragon Boat Club - The Sloths Dragon Boat Club is an active promoter of the sport of Dragon Boating through a variety of recruitment events, Dragon Pass and Come and Try Days that promoted dragon boating to new paddlers.

The Sloths are also actively involved in corporate activities, regularly coaching corporate teams in the annual LNY Regatta and promoting the sport at ELEVATE Sydney an outdoor event that celebrated Australian sport, music and entertainment.

Sound results across all racing categories have been achieved by Sloths during this season. Sloths were the overall winners of the DBNSW Regatta Series in Premier Mixed (Sloths Purple), Premier Open and Premier Women categories. At the Lunar New Year Regatta, Sloths came Second in Premier Mixed (Purple) and Premier Open, and Third in Premier Women category. Sloths Rebels came Third in the Premier Mixed Minor Final. Sloths also achieved its best result at AusChamps this season in over 15 years and was the only NSW dragon boat club to win Gold in Premier racing categories. Sloths won Gold in Premier Opens Standard Boat 200m and 500m and Silver in Premier Opens 2km. Sloths also won Bronze in Premier Mixed Standard Boat 200m and 500m, and Premier Women 200m, 500m and 2km.

The Sloths have also provided volunteers at DBNSW Regattas and the Lunar New Year Regatta this season to assist in the running of regattas. This also includes sweeping, coaching and drumming for LNY Corporate Races. Their paddlers have also volunteered to paddle or sweep for other clubs due to shortage of numbers. In addition Sloths have multiple volunteers on DBNSW Sub-Committee positions this season.

The Sloths have also showed their generosity by donated AUD $1000 to PADS Adaptive Dragonboat Racing Team in the Philippines (first ever cross-disability adaptive dragon boat racing program in the Philippines).

The Sloths have had a strong representative season with a number of NSW State Team representatives from Sloths:

• Senior B Coach, Senior B Manager, Premier Manager, Premier Assistant Coach, Junior Manager
• NSW Team Captains: Prems Opens, Senior A Womens Senior A Opens
• 12 NSW Representatives: Prems x 6, Senior A x 4, Senior B x 2

Sloths also have multiple representatives who’ve made it through to the first Auroras training camp selection.

Coach of the year Kristin Chick - Kristin Chick (aka ‘Chicki’) is the coach of one of DBNSW’s newest dragon boat clubs, Mako Paddle Club. Having launched the club in November 2019 with sixteen paddlers, donated paddles, and the oldest dragon boats in Australia, Mako has gone from strength to strength under Chicki’s leadership, coaching, communications skills, and unbridled enthusiasm.

Chicki is responsible for arranging and running three on water sessions a week, regatta management, dedicated new paddler technique sessions, paddler dedicated video and technique feedback sessions, sweep development, as well as being one of only two accredited female sweeps.

In terms of results, Mako leapfrogged every expectation set, and this has come from Chicki’s engaging, ever positive and brilliantly communicated technique development, season planning and training session structures. Her engaging and supportive approach gives paddlers the space to grow, while also building technically proficient and focussed crews. Chicki’s coaching and leadership is the cornerstone of Mako’s recruitment and retention. Her season and session planning is thoughtfully constructed and brilliantly executed.

In season 21-22, Mako raced DBNSW, DBACT regattas our first AusChamps in Adelaide. Mako: won gold in 4 from 5 events in Jindabyne; won our first DBACT final in the mixed 200m; and won our first Luna New Year medal with a 3rd in the Sen A Mixed. With a bare bones squad of 26, Mako raced in the Premier category with six prem paddlers only and a goal of making one final across the two days racing. Mako made all six straight line finals and came 4th in the Mixed 20 2k and 5th in the Open’s 10’s 2k.

Mako’s unexpected results that are the direct result of Chicki’s unwavering commitment to grassroots paddling and giving every member 100% commitment becoming the best paddler they can be.

Young Athlete of the year Danil O’Neil - Danny has been a consistently hard working and committed paddler, demonstrating strength as a paddler over a number of years as a Junior Aurora and a member of the NSW Junior State crew each year.

In 2021-22, Danny completed his coaching accreditation and took on the role of Assistant coach mentoring other junior paddlers and working confidently with paddlers in the U24 category. Danny is also a very competent sweep who qualified during the Covid years, and was able to sweep the Sydney Zodiacs Junior crew in Adelaide at the 2022 Australian Championships.

In this he demonstrated his commitment to the team as he gave up his paddling in this team to sweep and lead this crew throughout the competition.

Danny is passionate about Dragon Boating and his performance in the sport and is now trying to inspire a new generation of young paddlers. Season 21-22 was Danny's last season as a Junior and we can see him entering the U24 division with enthusiasm to keep improving.

Official of the year Denise Barham – Denise has been an enthusiastic dragon boat paddler since 2015, having represented NSW in the Senior C State team and then representing Australia as an Aurora at the 13th IDBF World Dragon Boat Championship in Kunming China in 2017.

Unfortunately, at the end of 2020, she suffered from extreme lower back pain and was forced to withdraw from paddling while she awaited medical advice. In early 2021, she underwent a two level spinal fusion surgery and after some recuperation, attempted to return to paddling.

Unfortunately, she realised that her time as a paddler was over and enthusiastically embarked upon officiating at dragon boat regattas in a volunteer capacity. She completed the AUSDBF Official Level 1 course in September 2021 to acquaint herself with the responsibilities required as an official.

She was appointed to the role of Team Manager for the Senior A NSW State Team, which she performed with great professionalism. She was later appointed as Team Manager, Bank St for the 2022 Region v Region competition.

Alongside her service to the sport of dragon boating both on the water and in an official capacity, she has also served her club as Secretary since joining Easts in 2020.