Exminster.net

EXMINSTER HAIR & BEAUTY and the DRAGON BOAT CHALLENGE - 8.00 am Sunday 11th July at Exeter Quay. 16 rowers and 1 drummer. 200 metre sprint.

We arrived to register our team along with twelve other teams, this was the first Dragon Boat challenge we had entered. Sporting our zany wigs (kindly lent by Ex-Act) and t-shirts with our salon name on, we were in the fist race at 9.45.  Nobody took us seriously as we paddled up to the start line (can you blame them? take look at the photos) almost half our team were hairdressers!!

Our team members were: Jane Tombs, Sally Burke (drummer), Jo Leigh Brown, Tasha Gatherum, Chris Stanley, Emilee Tombs, Matt Tombs, Richard Booker-Williams, Gordon Brown, Dave Barr, Nigel Burke, Joe Blundell, Nikki Batho, Sophie Batho, Aimee Husbands, Clare Melbourne and Pete Horner.

We had three training sessions before hand and they really paid off. We came 1st in our first race with a time of 1.10, then a rest for nearly two and a half hours while we watched the competition (our rivals and the event itself).

Dream-A-Way and Haven Banks were the co-organisers and apart from the twelve charity teams entered there were about 30 professional teams from all over the country who race throughout the year. It really is a colourful and exciting event to see. Our second race was at 12.15 so we were fairly well recovered and once again we came 1st with an even better time of 1.04.

Unfortunately our next race was less than a 45mins later at 1.05 so gave us little time to recover  and we were just beaten into 3rd place. But our combined times meant that we had made it to the top three! We were amazed and so was everyone else.

The final was very nerve racking we were up against last years runners up (on the waterfront) and last years winners (Haven Banks). Our adrenaline was working overtime as we paddled to the start, it was very edgy as the other teams had raced each other in the final last year and they weren't sure about us, there were a lot of playful insults flying around! Our hard work and determination didn't go to waste we couldn't manage to beat the winners of last year, but we did come 2nd. We are all very proud and our trophy has pride of place in the salon where we also have a selection of real action photos!

Finally a huge thankyou to all our sponsors and well wishers and everyone who came along and supported us on the day. We raised just about £1,200.00 for Dream-A-Way. It certainly was a fantastic, fun filled day.

Comments (0)