Leduc Festival and Corporate Challenge 2011 - Pipestone Flyer
Jun 23, 2011 
CORPORATE CHALLENGE in Leduc!
Source: Dominique Vrolyk, Pipestone Flyer
On Sunday, June 19, the 2011 CORPORATE CHALLENGE came to the City of Leduc featuring its Dragon Boat Race segment on Telford Lake in the heart of downtown Leduc. The host event was in fact the 4th ANNUAL LEDUC DRAGON BOAT FESTIVAL, organized by Kevin Kwan and the Edmonton Dragon Boat Racing Club (EDBRC) to benefit the Black Gold Health Foundation. The regional internet radio station Leduc Radio (.com) was on site, providing a live feed of the end of each heat, as well as a colourful commentary by station manager Kirk C. The impressive number of 37 teams brought several hundred paddlers, their support teams and loved ones to the rainy and wind swept shores of Telford Lake.
Paddlers and spectators agreed that the event was well planned and executed in a timely fashion. Many tents provided a welcome respite from the pounding rain, but paddlers felt that the rain didn’t matter, as they were prepared to get wet while on the water. Paddlers, like many other sports enthusiasts are not fair weather athletes, as blistering heat and cold rainy weather doesn’t affect their performance.
Bart Pouteau, City of Leduc coordinator for the Edmonton Corporate Challenge 2011, shared that in their 3rd year participation, the City teams have performed very well in other Corporate Challenge events. These results are as follows: Gold in Golf, Silver in Unknown Challenge (a Survivor type competition), Silver in Horseshoes, 4th in Power Pole (a tug of war fun contest) and Points in the Blood Donor Challenge.
The Leduc Dragon Boat Festival and the Corporate Challenge results attest to the City of Leduc’s team performance. The top four results are as posted on site that day:
CORPORATE CHALLENGE – B DIVISION
Finals (200 m)
1st Place: Enbridge Pipelines
2nd Place: City of Leduc
3rd Place: Dow Chemical
4th Place: Alberta Innovates Technology Futures (formerly AB Research Council)
CORPORATE CHALLLENGE – A DIVISION
Finals (200 m)
1st Place: EPCOR – GO FISH
2nd Place: Imperial Oil
3rd Place: City of Edmonton
4th Place: ATB Financial ( a special congrats to team captain Paige Matlock)
LEDUC DRAGON BOAT FESTIVAL- A DIVISION
Finals:
1st Place: EDBRC Mixed
2nd Place: Lethbridge Leftovers (each paddler’s t-shirt showed the name of a type of leftover)
3rd Place: Dragon Blades
4th Place: EDBRC Warriors
5th Place: SunLife Sunstrokes (special congrats to Beaumont’s Jeff and Louise Gibbs)
6th Place: Dragon Aggies (congenial team made of AB Agriculture staffers & friends).
Two tents provided much appreciated refreshments and food to participants and spectators. A large, bright and yellow dome tent hosted freshly squeezed lemonade served by a congenial French lady, Melodie, as well as a specialty drink for diabetics (lemonheaven.com). Another tent served a variety of mouth watering treats prepared by CAJAVI Japanese & Vietnamese Restaurant, a new eatery set in the Days Inn in Leduc (formerly the Leduc Inn).
A University of Lethbridge paddler, Tracy Paulin, reports that Henderson Lake in her city is a great training and racing location. Her club is hosting a Dragon Boat Festival on the Canada Day weekend, and feel that this festival in Leduc was very well organized, and an excellent preparation for the upcoming races in Lethbridge!
Wayne Adams, a Millet resident and loyal reader of the Leduc Wetaskiwin Pipestone Flyer was happy to contribute his positive feedback on the Dragon Boat Festival & the Corporate Challenge. Although he works for General Paints in Edmonton, his team was the Alberta Aggies that also included Air Canada and Graham Construction staffers.
Carol Hampton, captain of the City of Leduc Corporate Challenge Dragon Boat Team and a member of the City’s Planning & Development Department, agrees that the experience was very positive for everyone, even the ‘newbies.’ Paige Matlock, captain of the newly formed ATB Financial team, showed undaunted enthusiasm as a second-year dragon boater, a sentiment that seemed shared by her teammates.
All in all, this event brought large crowds to the City of Leduc, and the Leduc Dragon Boat team made the City shine in the Final Race Results. The Black Gold Health Foundation has found yet again another event to ‘support its cause,’ as announced dynamically by the event MC throughout the day. Lorraine Popik of the Foundation agrees that they welcome their involvement in this festival, as any exposure on a large scale is beneficial to the foundation’s fundraising initiatives. Brenda Dodman, Chair of the Foundation, agrees that despite the unkind weather, they did well in selling tickets to their three fund raising raffles.
The word is that the 2012 Edmonton Corporate Challenge will look into hosting its Dragon Boat segment again on Leduc’s Telford Lake, a wonderful host location.