I am a passionate dragon boater, it is a sport that has an amazing community. I paddle for Different Strokes Dragon Boat Club which is a Sydney based social and sporting outlet for the LGBTQ community – the only one of its kind in Australia. 

 

Different Strokes wanted to do something that made an emphatic statement about their support for marriage equality in Australia.  The board approached me and asked if I would help them with creating a photo with members of various NSW based teams wearing their club colours arranged in the order of the colours of the pride flag. Their plan was to put a call out at the next regatta for any paddlers who would like to participate. They imagined that they would get 20-30 people in the photo however it turned into a huge show of support with all but a handful of people joining in. 

 

With such a large group of people I was glad to have some helpers – luckily we had arranged some coloured placards to help with positioning people according to colours. Time was short as we didn’t want to delay racing however everyone was very cooperative and we were able to get the shot in a shor amount of time. 

 

The resulting photo was published across numerous social media platforms and was wonderful display of support of Marriage Equality by people from all walks of life with one other thing in common – a love of Dragon Boating.